Seattle - Pride for Obama 0 comments
I just got this message:
We're exhausted but happy, and thankful for the amazing day that was because of all of you. You invited your friends, set your alarms to arrive on time, waited patiently for the parade to start, and when it did, handed out 5,000 stickers, danced and chanted, and made sure that the entire parade audience knew that Obama Pride was in the house! We surpassed every goal we had. We registered *577* people to vote. We raised thousands of dollars to be used for grassroots efforts to ensure an Obama victory here at home. We even won the People's Choice Award for best parade entry!!! We saw dozens of cameras in circulation throughout the parade and during the festival. I've started a Flickr photo group here for you to share your pictures from today:
people are putting shots at Flickr & videos at YouTube
I Don't Do Cowering 0 comments
In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Barack Obama gave perhaps the greatest quote in the history of democratic politics. The greatest sound bite. The best, most reassuring statement about how he will handle this presidential race. It reiterates my belief that this will be no 2004, no Willie Horton type of year. Obama will not be swiftboated.
Per the New York Times:
It was not all about pop culture. When Mr. Wenner asked how Mr. Obama might respond to harsh attacks from Republicans, suggesting that Democrats have "cowered" in the past, Mr. Obama replied, "Yeah, I don’t do cowering."
They are just scared .. 0 comments
If you belong to an Obama list serve:
-------WARNING!!!!------
THESE LIST SERVES HAVE BEEN INFILTRATED BY PEOPLE PRETENDING TO SUPPORT
BARACK OBAMA BUT WHO CLAIM TO BE DISENCHANTED WITH HIM NOW
AND THREATEN TO CHANGE THEIR SUPPORT TO RALPH NADER OR JOHN MCCAIN.
THEY ARE FRAUDS!!!
THEY ARE TRYING TO DERAIL OBAMA'S SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN.
DO NOT COMMUNICATE WITH THESE PLANTS!!! DO NOT ENGAGE WITH THEM!!
THEY ARE TRYING TO DIVERT YOU AND ME FROM OUR GOALS OF GETTING BARACK OBAMA ELECTED.
DELETE!!! DELETE!!! DELETE!!!
SHUT THEM DOWN!!!!
ONE THING IS FOR SURE.........IF BARACK OBAMA IS NOT ELECTED, CHANGE OF ANY KIND WILL NOT HAPPEN....PERIOD!!
DO NOT BE MISLED BY THOSE WHO ARE LULLED INTO A FALSE STATE OF IDEALISM
BY THEIR IGNORANCE OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES
AND JUST WHAT IT TAKES TO BE ELECTED PRESIDENT IN TODAY'S WORLD.
BARACK OBAMA IS THE BEST LEADER WE HAVE SEEN IN 40 YEARS.
I HAVE EVERY CONFIDENCE IN HIS CHOICES AND SUPPORT THEM 1000%.
DO NOT SECOND GUESS HIM AT THIS TIME.
GET BEHIND HIM AND GET HIM ELECTED.
THE CHANGE YOU WISH FOR WILL COME.
A Voice of Wisdom 0 comments
I usually don't pipe in on these discussions, but we have to be as passionate about Barack now as we were in February. Barack can be an idealist, but for us to take our country back, he now needs to be a politician. I know, it hurts. But he now is preaching to the 20% in the middle, not liberal or conservative, and he cannot McCain create another set of lies about how we will be a better nation under a Republican.
Barack now needs to be a hardened candidate that can win. William Jennings Bryant and Adlai Stephenson were candidates who campaigned as idealists, and that resulted in four Democratic losses.
We must take our country back, and I will forgive Barack everything until he elected. Now, AFTER he takes the oath of office, he loses his free pass and we will all hold him accountable.
Thanks for letting me participate!
A friend who has been around the block for a few decades
Bounce 0 comments
The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows the Democrat with a 15-point lead over McCain.
The Obama campaign began organizing a national voter drive even before he secured the nomination. Last week the camp deployed 3,600 volunteers to 17 states, where they are proselytizing for the candidate and looking for recruits.
Pro-Bush Evangelical author writes pro-Obama book 0 comments
The conservative Evangelical biographer of George W. Bush and Tom DeLay has moved on to a new subject: Barack Obama. And his new book, due out this summer, may lend credibility to Senator Obama's bid to win Evangelical Christian voters away from the Republican Party.
The forthcoming volume from Stephen Mansfield, whose sympathetic "The Faith of George W. Bush" spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 2004, is titled "The Faith of Barack Obama." Its tone ranges from gently critical to gushing, and the author defends Obama-and even his controversial former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright-from conservative critics, and portrays him as a compelling figure for Christian voters.
"Young Evangelicals are saying, 'Look, I'm pro-life but I'm looking at a guy who's first of all black-and they love that; two, who's a Christian; and three who believes faith should bear on public policy," Mansfield, who described himself as a conservative Republican, said in a telephone interview. "They disagree with him on abortion, but they agree with him on poverty, on the war."
His book, provided exclusively to Politico by the publisher, focuses more on Obama's religious journey than his electoral prospects.
Frank Rick Gets It 0 comments
But while the McCain campaign apparently believes that women are easy marks for its latent feminist cross-dressing, a reality check suggests that most women can instantly identify any man who’s hitting on them for selfish ends. New polls show Mr. Obama opening up a huge lead among female voters — beating Mr. McCain by 13 percentage points in the Gallup and Rasmussen polls and by 19 points in the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey.
How huge is a 13- to 19-percentage-point lead? John Kerry won women by only 3 points, Al Gore by 11.
Obama's Brain Trust 0 comments
very good article, very encouraging
Obama's Brain Trust
Saw Quincy Jones speak at UW Commencement today and he seemed positive toward Obama (without mentioning him directly) as did the guy from the Senior class who represented the rest and said patriotism isn't just shown by a pin you wear on your lapel.
I also saw people registering voters & with Obama signs.
Obama gets tough 0 comments
"If they bring a knife to the fight," he told a crowd in Philadelphia last night about his Republican opponents, "we bring a gun."
What is important in life? 0 comments
This was a post on the Obama Blog....
At a town hall meeting in Kaukauna, Wisc., Thursday afternoon, amidst questions about health care and the economy, a young man said he had a question for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and Obama should "please be as intellectual or spiritual as you would like."
"Well this is a lot of pressure," Obama said to laugher.
"My question is: what does life mean to you?" the young man asked.
"Oh goodness," Obama said, a bit taken aback. "What does life mean to me?"
He stammered a bit as he contemplated the enormity of the query. "Well, uh, I, uh..." The crowd of 2,500 supporters at Kaukauna High School * laughed with apparent sympathy.
"I don't know where to start on a question like that," Obama said. "Let me just say a couple things. Right now what I think about most is my daughters who are 10 and 7," he said, referring to his daughters Malia and Sasha. "And not that I'm biased but they are perfect in all ways."
To the young man who asked the question, Obama said, "when I was your age, I thought life was all about me. And how do make my way in the world and how do I become successful and how do I get the things that I want. And right now life for me revolves around those two girls. And I think about what kind of a place am I leaving them."
And with that, came the able pivot.
"Michelle and I have been incredibly blessed," Obama said. "As long as God's looking over, my girls are going to be OK." They go to "great schools, will be able to afford college, are in good health
and will be well cared for if they ever get sick. But the country and the world they're living in, Obama said, needs work.
"Are they living in a county where there's a huge gap between a few who are wealthy and a whole bunch of people who are struggling every day?" Obama asked. "Are they living in a county that is still divided by race?
"Are they living in a country where because they're girls they don't have as much opportunity as boys do?
"Are they living in a country where we are hated around the world because we don,t cooperate with other countries as effectively as we should? Are they living in a country where they are threatened by terrorism and a nuclear explosion could happen in a major American city? Are they living in a country in which because of a lack of sensible energy we are not only ransoming our future, but we're also threatening the very livelihood of the planet?"
Obama continued, "what life means to me is that every day I wake up trying to figure out how can I secure their futures and the futures of all children, ...How can I make sure that we are giving a planet and a country to them that is better than the one we got? And, you know ,so I guess what I've discovered is that life doesn't count for much unless you're somehow giving yourself to something larger to yourself. And that's part of my Christian faith. It's also part of the reason I am running for president of the United States."
Text Me 0 comments
Good to see that the all important Hollywood starlet key demographic is getting sewn up early.
Obama Could Get 40% of Evangelicals / The Joshua Project 0 comments
In a new interview with Dan Gilgoff for BeliefNet's God-o-Meter, DeMoss explains the lack of religious enthusiasm for McCain and predicts a potential major shift to Obama.
McCain is not inherently comfortable with evangelicals, nor they with him. Clinton did fairly well with them even at the height of scandal, which means they can not all be lumped into one group who supported Bush.
Evangelicals who support Obama
In the next two weeks Barack Obama's campaign will unveil a major new program to attract younger Evangelicals and Catholics to their campaign. It's called the "Joshua Generation Project." The name is based on the biblical story of how Joshua's generation led the Israelites into the Promised Land.
A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File the following:
"The Joshua Generation project will be the Obama campaign's outreach to young people of faith. There's unprecedented energy and excitement for Obama among young evangelicals and Catholics. The Joshua Generation project will tap into that excitement and provide young people of faith opportunities to stand up for theivalues and move the campaign forward."
The official rollout won't be for another two weeks or so, but The Brody File has been told the activities will include house parties, blogging, concerts and more.
CBN news
Obama Could Raise $100 Million in June 0 comments
Source: The Hill
Leading Democratic fundraisers predict that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will raise hundreds of millions of dollars over the next few months if he opts out of public financing and begins raising money for the general election.
Specifically, they say Obama could raise $100 million in June and could attract 2.5 million to 3 million new donors to his campaign.
These fundraisers say Obama could increase his fundraising dramatically because of three factors: a boost of enthusiasm among Obama donors following his clinching of the nomination; the migration of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) donors to his camp; and the mobilization of big Democratic donors who have given little so far this year.
Record-breaking projections give Obama strong incentive to pass up $85 million in public funds that his opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), has said he would accept.
Obama Sets up Internet War Room 0 comments
Barack Obama sets up internet 'war room' to fight slurs
A crack team of cybernauts will form a rapid response internet "war room" to track and respond aggressively to online rumours that Barack Obama is unpatriotic and a Muslim.
As he gears up for his general election fight against John McCain, Mr Obama and his chief advisers are aware of the danger of such rumours, amid polling data showing that a significant number of Americans believe he is a Muslim or are suspicious about his background. Such doubts were a factor in his poor showing with white, blue-collar voters during his primary battle with Hillary Clinton.
In recent days Mr Obama has -- unprompted -- brought up the subject of the chain e-mails and blog sites making the false claims. Some state that he is a radical Muslim who was sworn in as a US senator on the Koran; others that he sympathises with Palestinian radicals. Many focus on his middle name of Hussein, which was taken from his Kenyan father.
Referring to the e-mails in a speech last week to AIPAC, the powerful Jewish lobby, Mr Obama said: "They are filled with tall tales and dire warnings about a certain candidate for president and all I want to say is, 'Let me know if you see this guy named Barack Obama because he sounds pretty scary'."
(read the whole thing at the link)
Change - Barack speaks to volunteers 0 comments
WATCH and get inspired
Frank Rich Nails It today in the New York Times 0 comments
One Historic Night, Two Americas
WHEN Barack Obama achieved his historic victory on Tuesday night, the battle was joined between two Americas. Not John Edwards’s two Americas, divided between rich and poor. Not the Americas split by race, gender, party or ideology. What looms instead is an epic showdown between two wildly different visions of the country, from the ground up.
On one side stands Mr. Obama’s resolutely cheerful embrace of the future. His vision is inseparable from his identity, both as a rookie with a slim Washington résumé and as a black American whose triumph was regarded as improbable by voters of all races only months ago. On the other is John McCain’s promise of a wise warrior’s vigilant conservation of the past. His vision, too, is inseparable from his identity — as a government lifer who has spent his entire career in service, whether in the Navy or Washington.
Given the dividing line separating the two Americas of 2008, a ticket uniting Mr. McCain and Hillary Clinton might actually be a better fit than the Obama-Clinton “dream ticket,” despite their differences on the issues. Never was this more evident than Tuesday night, when Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain both completely misread a one-of-a-kind historical moment as they tried to cling to the prerogatives of the 20th century’s old guard.
All presidential candidates, Mr. Obama certainly included, are egomaniacs. But Washington’s faith in hierarchical status adds a thick layer of pomposity to politicians who linger there too long. Mrs. Clinton referred to herself by the first-person pronoun 64 times in her speech, and Mr. McCain did so 60 times in his. Mr. Obama settled for 30.
Remarkably, neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. McCain had the grace to offer a salute to Mr. Obama’s epochal political breakthrough, which reverberated so powerfully across the country and throughout the world. By being so small and ungenerous, they made him look taller. Their inability to pivot even briefly from partisan self-interest could not be a more telling symptom of the dysfunctional Washington culture Mr. Obama aspires to mend.
Yet even as the two establishment candidates huffed and puffed to assert their authority, they seemed terrified by Mr. Obama’s insurgency, as if it were the plague in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death.” Mrs. Clinton held her nonconcession speech in a Manhattan bunker, banishing cellphone reception and television monitors carrying the news of Mr. Obama’s clinching of the nomination. Mr. McCain, laboring under the misapprehension that he was wittily skewering his opponent, compulsively invoked the Obama-patented mantra of “change” 33 times in his speech.
Mr. McCain only reminded voters that he, like Mrs. Clinton, thinks that change is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. He has no idea what it means. “No matter who wins this election, the direction of this country is going to change dramatically,” he said on Tuesday. He then grimly regurgitated Goldwater and Reagan government-bashing talking points from the 1960s and ’70s even as he presumed to accuse Mr. Obama of looking “to the 1960s and ’70s for answers.”
Mr. Obama is a liberal, but it’s not your boomer parents’ liberalism that is at the heart of his appeal. He never rattles off a Clinton laundry list of big federal programs; he supports abortion rights and gay civil rights with a sunny bonhomie that makes the right’s cultural scolds look like rabid mastodons. He is not refighting either side of the domestic civil war over Vietnam that exploded in his hometown of Chicago 40 years ago this summer, long before he arrived there.
He has never deviated from his much-quoted formulation in “The Audacity of Hope,” where he described himself as aloof from “the psychodrama of the baby boom generation” with its “old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago.” His vocabulary is so different from that of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain that they often find it as baffling as a foreign language, even as they try to rip it off.
The selling point of Mr. Obama’s vision of change is not doctrinaire liberalism or Bush-bashing but an inclusiveness that he believes can start to relieve Washington’s gridlock much as it animated his campaign. Some of that inclusiveness is racial, ethnic and generational, in the casual, what’s-the-big-deal manner of post-boomer Americans already swimming in our country’s rapidly expanding demographic pool. Some of it is post-partisan: he acknowledges that Republicans, Ronald Reagan included, can have ideas.
Opponents who dismiss this as wussy naïveté do so at their own risk. They at once call attention to the expiring shelf life of their own Clinton-Bush-vintage panaceas and lull themselves into underestimating Mr. Obama’s political killer instincts.
The Obama forces out-organized the most ruthless machine in Democratic politics because the medium of their campaign mirrored its inclusive message. They empowered adherents in every state rather than depending on a Beltway campaign hierarchy whose mercenary chief strategist kept his day job as chief executive for a corporate P.R. giant. Such viral organization and fund-raising is a seamless fit with bottom-up democracy as it is increasingly practiced in the Facebook-YouTube era, not merely by Americans and not merely by the young.
You could learn a ton about the Clinton campaign’s cultural tone-deafness from its stodgy generic Web site. A similar torpor afflicts JohnMcCain.com, which last week gave its graphics a face-lift that unabashedly mimics BarackObama.com and devoted prime home page real estate to hawking “McCain Golf Gear.” (No joke.) The blogs, video and social networking are static and sparse, the apt reflection of a candidate who repeatedly invokes “I” as he boasts of his humility.
Mr. Obama’s deep-rooted worldliness — in philosophy as well as itinerant background — is his other crucial departure from the McCain template. As more and more Americans feel the pain of spiraling gas prices and lost jobs, they are also coming to recognize, as Mr. Obama does, that the globally reviled American image forged by an endless war in Iraq and its accompanying torture scandals is inflicting economic as well as foreign-policy havoc.
Six out of 10 Americans do want their president to talk to Iran’s president, according to the most-recent Gallup poll. Americans are sick of a national identity defined by arrogant saber-rattling abroad and manipulative fear-mongering at home. Mr. Obama closed his speech on Tuesday by telling Americans they “don’t deserve” another election “that’s governed by fear.” Of the three candidates, he was the only one who did not mention 9/11 that night.
Mr. Obama isn’t flawless. But it’s hard to see him hitching up with Mrs. Clinton, who would contradict his message, unite the right, and pass along her husband’s still unpacked post-presidency baggage. A larger trap for Mr. Obama is his cockiness. His own tendency to preen and to coast could be encouraged by recent events rocking the Straight Talk Express: Mr. McCain is so far proving an exceptionally clumsy candidate prone to accentuating everything that’s out-of-touch about his American vision.
Mr. McCain’s speech in a New Orleans suburb on Tuesday night spawned a cottage industry of ridicule, even among Republicans. The halting delivery, sickly green backdrop and spastic, inappropriate smiles, presumably mandated by some consultant hoping to mask his anger, left the impression that Mr. McCain isn’t yet ready for prime-time radio.
But the substance was even worse than the theatrics. Incredibly, Mr. McCain attacked Mr. Obama for being insufficiently bipartisan while speaking to the most conspicuously partisan audience you can assemble in today’s America: a small, nearly all-white crowd that seconded his attack lines with boorish choruses of boos. On TV, the audience came across as a country-club membership riled by a change in the Sunday brunch menu.
Equally curious was Mr. McCain’s decision to stage this event in Louisiana, a state that is truly safe for the G.O.P. and that he’d last visited less than six weeks earlier. Perhaps he did so because Louisiana’s governor, the 36-year-old Indian-American Bobby Jindal, is the only highly placed nonwhite Republican he could find to lend his campaign an ersatz dash of diversity and youth.
Or perhaps he thought that if he once more returned to the scene of President Bush’s Katrina crime to (belatedly) slam that federal failure, it would fool voters into forgetting his cheerleading for Mr. Bush’s Iraq obsession and economic policies. This time it proved a levee too far. The day after his speech Mr. McCain was caught on the stump misstating and exaggerating his own do-little record after Katrina. Soon the Internet was alight with documentation of what he actually did on the day the hurricane hit land: a let-us-eat-cake photo op with Mr. Bush celebrating his birthday in Arizona.
Anything can happen in politics, and there are five months to go. But Tuesday night’s McCain pratfall — three weeks in the planning by his campaign, according to Fox News — should be a clear indication that Mr. Obama must accept Mr. McCain’s invitation to weekly debates at once. Tomorrow if possible, and, yes, bring on the green!
Mr. Obama must also heed Mr. McCain’s directive that he visit Iraq — as long as he avoids Baghdad markets and hits other foreign capitals on route. When the world gets a firsthand look at the new America Mr. Obama offers as an alternative to Mr. McCain’s truculent stay-the-course, the public pandemonium may make J.F.K.’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” visit to the Berlin Wall look like a warm-up act.
नस, ब्लैक प्रेसिडेंट 0 comments
Title should read "Nas, Black President." Posted it originally on my laptop and no matter what I did it wanted to keep the transliteration.
So be it, I think it looks kinda cool.
Obamakini 0 comments
Ironically, found first as advertising on this site ..
Food Tasters for Obama 0 comments
After Barack Obama became the "presumptive nominee" and there was speculation about who would be his running mate, some pundits suggested that he hire food tasters. We think that would be great and as motivated Obama supporters are prepared to take the job. We love to eat all kinds of food and will make sure that President Obama does not get sick from eating a bad oyster. A number of enthusiastic and committed supporters have already signaled their desire to join Food Tasters to protect the President of the United States, even if it means putting on weight. Greg, a supporter who has slaved in several states for the campaign, looks forward to enjoying wholesome foods prepared by outstanding White House chefs after months of eating pizza warmed up in microwave ovens. Hannah is excited to taste for Barack, although she does not like mushrooms. Joe wants to make sure the group includes hard-working, white Americans and the foods they love, like meat and potatoes. Food Tasters for Obama will be inclusive and open to supporters of all dietary persuasions, including kosher and halal, veggie and vegan, gluten- or peanut-free, and any other kind of food allergy. We will even welcome lactose intolerant soy latte drinkers. So if you like Obama as much as you like to eat, join us and share your hopes and recipes with other like-minded Food Tasters for Obama.I
I just joined this group.
Obama: I'll Whup 'em 0 comments
95 year old man makes Obama a nice maple stick!!
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/06/05/sot.obama.beat.congress.cnn
(CNN) - Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, signaled Thursday that he means really business when it comes to health care reform.
An elderly African-American man presented Obama, the first African-American to secure the nomination of a major party, with a gift. Charles Edwards, who told Obama he was 95 years old, gave Obama a long maple walking stick.
"It's beautiful," Obama told Edwards. "And, if members of Congress don't pass my health care bill, I'm ready," Obama said wielding the stick as supporters laughed and cheered.
"I'll whup 'em," he joked. "They better not mess with me. I'll have that stick."
Obama's remarks at the event in Bristol, Virginia focused on health care reform. But the Illinois senator began his speech by praising former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton. "I congratulate her on her great achievement and I know that I'm a better candidate because I ran against her." Obama also told the crowd Clinton was "tough." "She is just an outstanding candidate and a great public servant," he added. (Related video: Obama commends Clinton)
Obama also used the occasion to emphasize the fact that he had bested Clinton in a long, hard-fought battle for their party's nod. "I am here to report that my faith has paid off," Obama said, referring to his belief that the non-traditional messages of his candidacy would resonate with the public. "And, I stand before you as the Democratic nominee for president of the United States of America."
Time for the Bounce 0 comments
In 2000, according to the national exit poll for the general election, Latinos made up just 7% of voters. The breakdown was as follows:
White 81%
Black 10%
Latino 7%
Asian 2%
Other 1%
In 2004, according to the national exit poll for the general election, Latinos made up 8% of voters. The breakdown was as follows:
White 77%
Black 11%
Latino 8%
Asian 2%
Other 2%
According to the current Political Dashboard available on yahoo.com, the current voter breakdown as of 2008 is as follows:
White 66%
Black 12%
Latino 15%
Asian 4%
Other 3%
Still On Line for Obama 0 comments
My favorite post at Seattle for Obama:
Things are interesting at my house -
I'm an old white broad. I fit nicely into the Hillary demographic. I'm also a recovering Hippy. It's a long recovery process. My mind is like a broken Firesign Theater record. I live in a chair because of severe lung disease. I am tethered to an Oxygen tank which makes all my ex-husbands laugh. It seems the tank has done something they could never quite do. Although I can't go outside, the world often comes to my door. Some days it feels like the United Nations in here. There are women that come in to care for me - Linda, a black woman from New Orleans and a Katrina survivor. She's has a beautiful soprano voice and sings in one of those "black churches that everybody's been talking about. She makes a mean Gumbo. Fordowsa, a black woman from Somalia whose mother walked with her five children to a refugee camp in Kenya where she grew up till she moved here. She's Muslim but mostly she's a teenager. She dawdles and daydreams a lot. Robyn comes once a week to give me massage to help my breathing. She's beautiful and bald because of the treatments for breast cancer. She's also studying to become an Orthodox Jew. Christopher takes care of the lawn for me. He's twenty something and gay and learning to be a Buddhist monk. He made a meditation corner in my garden. My friend David comes once a week to bring me communion (I rediscovered my Catholic faith after being diagnosed with a terminal illness - funny how that happens)
We are all Obama supporters.
I need a steady hand with a camera. Oh and did I say that Linda has one terrific soprano voice?
Time for a Buff First Lady 0 comments
I read this review in the newspaper - it talked about what Michelle Obama was wearing. I work out with weights 3x/week and I have thought about this alot.
The most notable aspect of her dress was that it was sleeveless. In the preposterously narrowly defined sartorial world of first ladyness, this means something other than it is June and thus, warm.
Generally, the women who have occupied the White House have been loath to appear sleeveless in public, as if the upper arms are some sort of political erogenous zone. They also tend to wardrobe themselves in suits that are tasteful above everything else -- including comfortable, flattering or even vaguely fashionable. So Obama was bucking tradition.
It is also true that a significant number of women, beginning as early as 30-something, don't particularly enjoy revealing their arms because they are self-conscious that theirs do not look like Madonna's sinewy limbs. While Michelle Obama doesn't look as though she spends half her day in a yoga half push-up -- chaturanga dandasana, to be specific -- she looks fit and she's got the arms to prove it.
Let The Games Begin... 0 comments
Here it is.
Obama 2008 Meets Chicago 2016
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., second from right, Olympic athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and others, applaud at a Chicago 2016 Olympic rally, June 6, 2008, at the Daley Center Plaza in Chicago. (Associated Press)
Updated 4:51 p.m.
By Peter Slevin
CHICAGO -- An ebullient Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), fresh from wrapping up the Democratic nomination, did his bit for another longshot campaign today when he made an impromptu pitch for his hometown to host the 2016 Olympics.
"This is a good time to be in Chicago!" Obama shouted when handed the spotlight by Mayor Richard M. Daley (D), the booster-in-chief of the Olympics bid. "The White Sox are winning, the Cubs are winning and Chicago's going to win the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics.
"And your senator, he's winning, too."
Chicago made it into the Olympics final four this week, but is trailing Tokyo and Madrid, according to the International Olympics Committee. That did not stop Daley, joined by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), from calling an outdoor rally to cheer.
Obama, in town for three rare quiet days -- he said he plans to take his wife, Michelle, on an actual date -- did his part.Obama's description of Chicago's strengths ("not just a city that works, but a city that inspires") and his view of Olympic ideals ("we can come together and accomplish great things") seemed to merge with the themes of his candidacy.
Posted at 3:27 PM ET on Jun 6, 2008 | Barack Obama
He said he expects to be finishing his second White House term in 2016 and pointed out that he lives within a few blocks of the proposed Olympic stadium in Washington Park. He might have to rent out his place during the games, he joked, if the price is right.
"In 2016, I'll be wrapping up my second term as President," Obama said. "I can't think of a better way than to be walking into Washington Park...as president of the United States and announcing to the world, 'Let the Games begin!'"
In honor of a pair of Os -- Obama and the Olympics -- the crowd of lunchtime passersby, which grew as his voice carried across Daley Plaza, started up his signature campaign chant, "Yes We Can!"
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A Strong Message 0 comments
This video is just a placeholder for Obama talking today about how the Olympics will be in Chicago at the end of his second term, but , for now , it will have to do.
I Was Born On An Island 0 comments
I was born on Manhattan two and a half years after Obama was born in Hawaii...
~Nyc
Dylan on Obama 0 comments
Dylan link
Dylan said Obama is "redefining the nature of politics from the ground up," as he was interviewed in Denmark on his way to his art exhibition in the UK. "Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval. Poverty is demoralising. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor. But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up...Barack Obama. He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to. You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future."
Relevant lyric: "Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall," and: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticise what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly agin'."
blasphemy image from a French blog
Zach Like Me 0 comments
Ran into a Pedi-Cab Comrade of mines this afternoon and this is what he had to say:
Spell Change 0 comments
I can be seen wearing a red shirt at the 20 second mark and I'm also at the very top of the first "A".
Robert Schlaugh Photos from St. Paul 0 comments
(posted by Turtle, who appreciates art)
Even Murdoch Admits Barack is on Top 0 comments
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
- Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963
International Headline Sampler 0 comments
El Pais (Madrid): Obama se convierte en el primer candidato negro a la presidencia de Estados Unidos
(Obama becomes the first black candidate to the presidency of the United States)
Financial Times (London): Obama clinches the Democratic nomination
The Telegraph (London): Obama limps over line despite Dakota defeat
Senator becomes the first black nominee in history despite Clinton win in South Dakota.
Le Monde (Paris) Interrogations sur la stratégie de fin de campagne d'Hillary Clinton
(Questions on the ending strategy of Hillary Clinton's campaign)
Berliner Morgenpost (Berlin): Barack Obama lässt sich als Kandidat feiern
(Barack Obama can be celebrated as a candidate)
Reforma (Mexico City): Hace Obama historia; asegura nominación
(Obama makes history; nomination assured)
Clarín (Buenos Aires): Obama logró los delegados necesarios y es el candidato demócrata a la Casa Blanca
(Obama obtained the necessary delegates and is the democratic candidate to the White House)
Jakarta Post (Jakarta, Indonesia): Obama seals nomination; McCain eager for battle
The Australian (Melbourne): Barack Obama claims nomination but Hillary Clinton hangs on
Al Jazeera (Doha, Qatar): Obama 'wins Democratic nomination'
Illinois senator projected to become first African-American presidential candidate.
Jerusalem Post (Jerusalem): Obama seals Democratic presidential nomination
Defeated Hillary Clinton maneuvers for the vice presidential spot on Illinois senator's ticket without conceding her own loss.
Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa): Obama first black nominee for White House
Clinton vows party unity
China Daily (Beijing): Obama seals Democratic nomination
Barack Obama sealed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, a step toward his goal of becoming the first black US president.
