As she rolls out the pretty awesome Let's Move campaign against childhood obesity, Michelle Obama is taking guff about using her daughters as an example of learning to exit the highway to obesity.
It's unfortunate that that was the first thing I heard about Let's Move. The First Lady has made what I believe are some excellent points about obstacles to nutrition in our country. To wit:
"Urban sprawl and fears about safety often mean the only walking they do is out their front door to a bus or a car." "It's about small changes that add up - like walking to school, replacing soda with water or skim milk, trimming those portion sizes a little - things like this can mean the difference between being healthy and fit or not."
I love that Michelle Obama is working on this. I love most of what she's saying about it.
However, I'm torn about whether it was a good idea to use the First Daughters as an example here. True, perhaps the family had this conversation, and the daughters were okay with it. Nevertheless, the act of using your own daughters' bodies to make a point seems excessive. On the one hand, this is very similar to what politicians do all the time in campaigns, apparently with the subject's consent - "Jack here is unemployed and his children are sick" - but on the other hand, you are telling the public about your daughters' medical issues, issues that are ridden with social stigma. Furthermore, it seems so unnecessary. Mrs. Obama's speech is so right-on about so many issues that the personal tie gilds the lily for me. As a tax-and-spend liberal, I'm probably not the audience, but I find it hard to believe that the personal anecdote would have changed anyone's mind. So why not leave it out?
I am not sure how much this bothers me. Perhaps not much. But I do know that the following bothers me: using body-shaming language about your pre-adolescent/adolescent daughters. For millions to read about. ABC reported that President Obama said the following:
"A couple of years ago – you’d never know it by looking at her now – Malia was getting a little chubby."
Again, perhaps this conversation with Malia happened and she was cool with it. But there is really, really no need for this and it detracts from what Let's Move is about - it's not supposed to be about making women feel like shit for being "a little chubby." It's about making healthy choices. As Psychology Today points out, "[w]ords like “chubby” don’t cause eating disorders but they are often a trigger to disordered eating behavior. As an eating disorder professional, we would strongly caution parents from using labels or prerogative words to describe their child’s weight as this has lasting impacts on a child’s self esteem."
I would ask anyone who has a young person in their lives they care about to encourage healthy choices by emphasizing benefits like growing up big and strong, having a well-functioning body (heart, tummy, etc), and maybe being able to perform better in school/sports/arts, rather than focusing on being not chubby. The more we teach children that healthy choices are about being well and not about deprivation to achieve a certain type of body, the better service we do for the young men and young women in our lives, and the healthier they will be.
I have to admit, I have become very weary of hearing about the Gates incident in Cambridge. I hate the vitriol that this discussion causes and makes people instantly react and assume that those involved acted in bad faith and were out to "get" the other one. I don't like it because it so often turns into an argument about the veracity of claims or the impugning of character that draws on entire histories of caricatures of peoples positions on certain groups. "Cops are all racists" and "There 'they' go again, playing the race card." Yet, in placing these caricatures on both the sergeant, it is a convenient way to avoid talking about the underlying historical role that these forces play. Instantly, we (the public) assume a narrative that we believe to be the case and impose it on the situation.
How is it that an officer that had taught a class on racial profiling ends up being caught in a media firestorm over a racially-charged arrest? On the one hand, some say that it is "proof" that there was nothing racial about this incident whatsoever. Or, that a black officer supporting the sergeant's arrestmust be evidence that race has no role whatsoever in this. On the other hand, there are those who argue that really, the cop could still harbor subconscious racism and "had Gates been white, this wouldn't have happened."
What I think we need is a greater understanding of each other and knowing that we all make mistakes, but also the vast majority of act in good faith. I find this debate tiring. Not because I don't believe that race is important in shaping the experiences of all people, particularly in the United States. Nor do I believe that we should just say that everyone made mistakes and this was troubling, and then move on. In some way, the mistakes were perfectly predictable. The fact that racial profiling happens a far greater proportion of the time than it should provides the basis for mistrust. The fact that the officer teaches classes on it doesn't mean that the situation might have been handled differently had Gates been white. At the same time, it doesn't take away the fact that police officers face dangerous situations and, on a regular basis, have people lie to them. That it seems like Crowley escalated the argument rather than trying to diffuse it was a mistake, but it was an understandable human reaction to the situation. The fact that Gates was, by all accounts, heated didn't help the situation but, again, it was an understandable human reaction to the situation. I have little patience for people who say, "I would have done this or that in the same situation." One, it is impossible to tell—I have been surprised by the way I have reacted in many situations; and two, just because I would react in a certain way does not mean that every person acts differently in a situation does so in a way that is unreasonable or not understandable.
That is why, in all of this, I find this surprise press conference by the President refreshing. First, he admits that he didn't help the situation—he admits that he did something wrong. Let me tell you how much of a relief that is after President George W. "I make no mistakes" Bush. There can be no understanding and dialogue if people are not willing to admit that they would, if they had the opportunity, to do or say things differently. But second, and I think more importantly, Obama doesn't give in solely for political expediency. He could have apologized and said that everything was blown out of proportion; instead, he said:
...where all of us, instead of pumping up the volume, spend a little more time listening to each other, and try to focus on how we can generally improve relations between police officers and minority communities, and that instead of flinging accusations we can all be a little more reflective in terms of what we can do to contribute to more unity.
In other words, I did something that I wish I hadn't done and didn't help the situation. At the same time, let's not pretend that there is not a situation of minority profiling/discrimination that requires dealing with because I did something I wish that I hadn't done. It should also mentioned that the consequences of this racial discrimination and profiling can be truly tragic for the police as well. Obama's final statement:
There are some who say as president I shouldn't have stepped into this at all, (which) I disagree with. The fact that this has become such big issue is indicative of fact that race is still a troubling aspect of our society.
speaks to this.
Ultimately, I am not arguing that Crowley or Gates should have necessarily acted differently. It is in fact my very point—I know nothing about the situation other than how it fits into a larger narrative that requires assuming bad faith on one or both sides of the incident. By playing into that narrative and personalizing a structural situation into these two individuals leads to nothing but mistrust and hot air that ultimately gets us nowhere. I truly hope, if Sgt. Crowley and Dr. Gates are both interested in moving race relations forward—as much evidence seems to indicate—that they can then work together over beer, with the President, to actually make this a more constructive dialogue.
I'm sorry, I know this is not serious news, but pile this CNN video onto Obama's sunk 3 pointer while visiting the troops on the campaign trail, and an eerie, sent-from-another-planet pattern begins to emerge. I love anchor #2's face after the clip rolls, it just continues to fall when anchor #1 attempts some incoherent banter about being scared of horseflies.
Okay these "Autotune The News" bits are wearing on me, but I can't stop watching them. Mainly because I imagine my boss talking through an autotuner. "E. Couuuld Yooou Pleease Geeet Thaaaaat Teee Peee Esss Reee pooort Dooonnnne Tooo Maahhh Rooow. Greeeeaaat. Thaaaanks." Tight.
Obama wins with 311 Electoral Votes - I think he'll pick up Ohio and Virgina and come up just short in North Carolina and Florida and well short in Indiana. But, in the surprise, I think that he will pick up Nevada in a close race.
Dems have 59 Senate seats at the end of the night including a Franken win in Minnesota.
In the end, I predict very gracious speeches by both McCain and Obama.
Update: I hope that I am wrong and that Obama wins by more, but this is my pragmatic prediction.
The last two weeks of Palinomania have been depressing. Or irritating. Or frustrating. Or maddening. I don't know the word, but it seems like there is a sort of listlessness on the left side of the political spectrum. The polls have swung hard for Palin...er, I mean, McCain after the convention, the mainstream media seems to have fallen for all of the red meat put in front of it (or white meat as the case may be), and Obama's campaign has running to the middle irritating it's base. It's no wonder Jeremy felt desolate this afternoon about PalinMcCain overtaking Obama in the Intrade markets.
While the polls are all over the place (see here for a great graph from political scientist Charles Franklin showing the poll spread), I think that much of this concern is displaced nervousness about the way Palin's introduction into the race has made her the story rather than the campaign itself. Why do I think this? Because (unfortunately) in the U.S. we don't elect our president by national vote. As dr mentioned, the important vote is capturing enough electoral votes and in this, I think (as dr does), that Obama is doing pretty damn well.
[After trying for twenty minutes to get the table to format properly, I'm giving up on it. So, if you are so inclined, please continue reading after the big blank space]
Delegates
Obama Margin
Polls after GOP Convention
Strong
189
Lean
54
Pennsylvania
17
5.7
2
Wisconsin
10
7.7
1
New Mexico
5
7.2
0
Oregon
7
6.8
0
Washington
11
7.1
1
Toss-Up
98
Florida
27
-2.1
2
Ohio
20
0.7
1
Michigan
17
2.5
3
Virginia
13
-0.9
3
Colorado
9
0.8
1
Nevada
5
-0.7
0
New Hampshire
4
0.7
1
Montana
3
n.a.
1
This table is long, but this is why I'm encouraged. There are 538 electoral votes (two for each state senators, one for each Congressperson, and 3 for D.C.) and Obama needs 270 to win. Assuming that Obama wins all five states leaning his direction (a reasonable assumption looking at the map), Obama would have 243 electoral votes. This means he needs 27 of the remaining electoral votes to win, which, looking at the list above looks entirely doable for Obama to pull off. Although this list is virtually unchanged from the map Kerry was facing four years ago (the exception being that Wisconsin was much more of a toss-up, even up to election-eve polls), I don't think that any of us would disagree that Obama's campaign is much more talented than Kerry's.
A look at the "toss-up" states at the bottom of this list suggests that Obama has several different outcomes that could win this election. Let's assume that a combination of racists, hardcore conservatives, and Israel supporters wary of Obama makes Florida unobtainable. It makes sense to run a few ads, make sure McCain spends money there, and keep a minimal ground operation in a few strongholds in case there is a break. Although I don't want to count on it, I also think that Michigan will go for Obama. Michigan certainly has its fair share of racists and it is the state that made the term "Reagan Democrats" a political truism; but in the last several elections it has had a tradition of swinging Democratic late in races. While not counting on it, let's just play out the scenario where Michigan goes to Obama.
That leaves six more states. Winning either Ohio or Virginia wins the election for Obama outright. Winning only Colorado means that the electoral college will tie[1]. However, winning Colorado plus any other state also wins without requiring a win in Ohio. This means that, conditional on winning Michigan, Obama has three plausible ways to pull off a victory: win Ohio, win Virginia, or win Colorado with any other state. Thus, with the combination of Obama's fundraising advantage, superior ground campaigns built from the grueling primary campaign with Clinton, and the obvious skill of Obama's campaign to develop a winning strategy, I am feeling cautiously optimistic that our country might be headed in a new direction come January.
All of the data is based on figures from Pollster.com [1] This would be the worst of all possible situations. The tie would then go to Congress with one vote going to each state delegation. Despite Democratic gains in Congress, this would certainly go to the Republicans and have the added "benefit" of creating a second Constitutional crisis in eight years.
This was too good not to pass along...Obama's Rocky-esque quest to the White House (h/t Fabio). I particularly like the reversal of the racial symbolism.
I belong to no organized political party...I'm a Democrat! -Will Rogers
Despite my best efforts to spend my time writing for my dissertation, I find my mind wandering to the Super Tuesday results from yesterday and what it might mean from both a political and sociological perspective come time for the Democratic National Convention in August. Part of this stems from a very contentious thread posted by hilzoy at Obsidian Wings. She argues that yesterday bodes well for Democrats as we approach the general election because there are two good candidates and turnout is incredibly high. No contentious arguments, she claims, will be able to overcome that momentum and give the Republicans the advantage in the general election.
This obviously brought out a good deal of discussion about who would do what if Clinton won the nomination and how she won it. This got be thinking, from an organizational point of view, what does the convention mean, then? How could all of the different scenarios play out and, what—if anything—would we expect from the outcomes. For my own mental clarity, here is what I see as the possibilities[1]:
Scenario 1 (Best Case/Least Likely) Obama Wins Outright: Obama wins outright by a margin comfortable enough that he can a) overcome any disadvantage in superdelagates, b) allow the Michigan and Florida delegations to be seated (assuming all undeclared delegates go to Obama) and c) make Edwards' delegates a non factor. This would be a mandate and, while making for a boring convention (which might be supplied via a labor dispute, anyway), would unite the party and create a strong sense of momentum that will be hard to stop.
Scenario 2: (Almost Best Case/Tied for Least Likely) Clinton Wins Outright: Clinton wins outright by a margin comfortable enough that she can a) overcome any difference in superdelagates, b) allow the Michigan and Florida delegations to be seated and c) make Edwards' delegates a non factor. This would be a mandate and, while making for a boring convention (which might be supplied via a labor dispute, anyway), would unite the party and create a strong sense of momentum that will be hard to stop. The difference between 1 & 2? My candidate didn't win. And, I think that there will be A LOT of anti-Clinton backlash that might help unite the Republicans and swing independent voters. This was made all the more obvious when I talked to two people I know very well who are politically are not extremely far removed from me, but will not vote for Clinton.
Scenario 3 - (Decent Case/Highly Likely) Clinton Wins By Superdelegates: In this scenario, Clinton wins by picking up enough superdelegate votes to overcome the possibility that all of Edwards' delegates go to Obama without the need to seat the delegations from Florida and Michigan. As this scenario plays out, they would probably be seated anyway after it was obvious that Clinton was going to squeak by with the nomination without them and it would be a particularly classy move that could go a long way towards healing hard feelings of "insiders" (i.e. superdelegates) deciding the nomination if Obama personally makes the motion requesting that the two delegations be seated.
Scenario 4 - (Very Bad Case/Very Unlikely): Obama, including Edwards' delegates and superdelegates, wins by enough of a margin that he beats Clinton, but not by enough that he can overcome the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegations. All candidates, including Clinton, honor the fact that these state parties broke the rules and the delegations are not seated and Obama takes a fractured nomination. This is likely to make Clinton's supporters very angry and create animosity in two key swing states between Democratic voters and the Democratic Party.
Scenario 5 - (Worst Case/Somewhat Likely) Clinton "Steals" the Nomination with Michigan and Florida: In the worst of all possible scenarios, Clinton ends up getting the nomination by seating the delegates from Michigan and Florida after losing when the pledged delegates, superdelegates and Edwards' delegates have voted. This will leave a very bad taste in LOTS of people, causing many to refuse to vote, others (mainly independents) to vote Republican and giving the wingnut windbags like Limbaugh all kinds of ammunition against Clinton straight out of the gate.
I am not sure if this is all of the scenarios, feel free to add others. I am interested in an organizational point of view, how these scenarios get negotiated among the participants. From a political point of view, I think that it is going to become very obvious who has power in the Democratic Party and whether there is a foreshadowing of changes in the powerful players in the Party. From a sociological point of view, this presents a very interesting case study of what happens when rules are made by an elite membership in an organization where everyone is presumably fully knowledgeable and what happens when a wider audience then sees how those rules are (or, are not) upheld and what that means for legitimacy of both the organization and the actors themselves.
[1] In case it is not obvious from my past comments, I support Obama in this race.
I don't hate Hillary Clinton. I think that she gets a bad wrap for things that, if she were a man, wouldn't be questioned. I think that people are scared of her because she is a strong, intelligent and powerful woman. I am appalled at the level of "I Hate Hillary" sentiment that exists in this country because I believe that most of it is driven by peoples' fears of strong, intelligent and powerful women.
All of that being said, I hate Hillary Clinton's politics.
The fact that her campaign, largely led by Bill, has gone on an inexplicable offensive in the past couple of weeks is bad for politics and it's bad for the Democratic party. Josh Marshall has an excellent post about trying to pinpoint where he finds a problem with "Bill 2.0". He settles, it seems, largely on the fact that Bill Clinton is the leader of the Democratic Party and, as such, has an obligation to ensure the health of the party—even if that means not supporting Hillary as much as he would otherwise want to. For Josh, the problem is that Bill Clinton is thinking personally when he should be thinking professionally. His obligation to his party and, given the way that the two parties control the election of public officials in this country, also his country should come above his family obligations. Bill's actions are bad because it leads to political dynasties, not because of the actions themselves.
I respect Josh's analysis and believe that he is right about the problems of political dynasties. From very early one of my largest reservations with Hillary Clinton is the fact that, if she is elected and subsequently re-elected in 2012, two families would have controlled the Presidency for 28 years. Over a quarter of a century ruled by two families. That's bad for democracy. But, I have a bigger problem with what has happened with the Clinton campaign in the past two weeks that really gets at my intense dislike for the Clinton's politics.
That problem is this: Hillary Clinton's campaign is designed to win her the nomination at all costs and that cost might be the health of the Democratic Party. The actions of her campaign in the past couple of weeks has demonstrated that she does not mind stepping on the party if it can be a stepping stone to her nomination. In the past two weeks, Bill Clinton alleged that Obama was suppressing votes and the campaign was simultaneously claiming that the Culinary Workers Union was ordering members to vote for a particular candidate. Those lines are straight out of the corporate anti-union tactics playbook. Of course, that shouldn't be a big surprise, considering Mark Penn is one of her top advisors, and CEO of the company that runs the PR for firms such as Cintas, who has run an intense anti-union campaign against UNITE HERE, the same international with whom the Culinary Workers are federated, and whose poor worker safety led to a record fine by OSHA for a worker's death.
Then, in the past week to stir up controversies over the fact that Obama is winning in South Carolina because he is likely to get more black votes, among the other questionable truths (h/t lmw) means that the Clinton campaign is intentionally using this race-baiting tactic because they know the saliency of race and politics in this election. This was confirmed today, when Bill Clinton subtly brought up that Jesse Jackson won S.C. in the 1984 and 1988 primaries. Feeding into perceptions that black voters are going to vote for Obama because he is black feeds straight into the kind of despicable behavior that Republicans have used against black Democratic candidates (see Harold Ford).
This win-at-all-costs politics is bad. Not only does it have the effect of suppressing voters who are not already active participants in the political process (among whom, I believe, the majority would support Democrats) but it also sells out the very base of the Democratic Party. Arguing that union bosses intimidate their own workers does nothing to help workers organize and it undermines the very institutions that are responsible for the largest and most effective political machine on the left. Claiming that Obama is going to win South Carolina because he is black, not for his politics, plays into the racial-quota race-baiting of the conservative movement. But, it is politically expedient. And, it's worked. Many of the major media outlets are covering Obama's huge margin among black voters (including the AP, CNN, Fox, and internationaloutlets). And, it seems that Clinton's strategists agree, "Clinton campaign strategists denied any intentional effort to stir the racial debate. But they said they believe the fallout has had the effect of branding Obama as 'the black candidate,' a tag that could hurt him outside the South."
Even I have fallen into it. I have spent this entire post discussing Clinton when, in fact, the day belongs to Obama. He didn't just win South Carolina, he skunked Clinton there. His 55% percent mandate against two candidates is as high as Clinton's Michigan win against "Undecided." This is his day, his week and should be—at least until February 5th—his campaign. And, his victory speech was brilliant. It is worth watching all 17 minutes of it. But, talk about striking back with a brilliant political move, here is my favorite part of his speech:
We're up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. But we know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics. This is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore. This is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again. (Cheers, applause.)
But let me say this, South Carolina. What we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation.
It's a politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won't cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don't vote, the assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate, whites can't support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together.
Obama is right and his politics are good for the country. Whether I agree with him about the issues (I think, in the end, I would tend to support Edwards the most on the issues), the fact that people are engaged, involved and active in a presidential campaign is better for democracy and could help prevent useless wars and unbridled corruption in the future. Obama's campaign will mean more to the politics of this country losing this election than Clinton's will winning it.
About the prospects of Democrats in my new home state given that both Clinton and Obama would beat Giuliani in a state-wide general election right now. Clinton by 15 points and Obama by 5 points. Although early polls don't necessarily mean that much, it is nice to know that Rudy's megalomaniacal delusions aren't even working in his home state.
Now, granted that I am not positive that Clinton would be the best candidate for the job of President, or even that she would be the best Democrat currently running for the position. On the other hand, I do know that she will be better than race-baiting, police-state advocate Giuliani.
Although this might be too late to even matter, given our obsession with only covering the news that happened in the last thirty seconds, but I thought I would take a tiny bit of time to write my postmortem on the debate Tuesday night. I know, there was already another one last night; but, all told, I think that it might help me as much as inform you on what I think about the election and the state of politics in this country.
Let me start -- since this appears to be the custom -- by declaring the "winner" to be Dennis Kucinich. I put "winner" in quotes because I think that this is the thing that disturbs me the most about the political class in this country. Politics among the main-stream media is a game. And, for all of their chatter and objections to the MSM, many of the larger blogs are, in fact, guilty of the same thing. There are notable exceptions in both the main-stream media and the blogosphere, but, by-and-large this is still the modus operandi of the political class.
I know that this is not the first political discussion where this has been the case - in fact I wrote an angry letter to Wolf Blitzer after Al Sharpton's Democratic Convention speech in 2004 about the fact that the only thing that Blitzer saw fit to discuss was how far over time Sharpton went and whether this would be an embarrassment to the Democratic Party (which, of course, was not only morally and professionally corrupt, but idiotic. The DLC crowd, already too frightened of Sharpton to begin with, already banished Sharpton to the 4:00pm time slot meaning that Sharpton going over by ten minutes didn't matter. Yet, this was too nuanced of a point for Blitzer and he proved too stupid to pick up on). But, I guess this seemingly laborious tangent gets at my larger point which is this:
No Politics (capital "P") is ever going to create the change that we need without the politics (little "p") to support it.
In other words, candidates pander to this kind of media attention horse-race Politics as if it were the run up to the World Series because rich and/or powerful people see this as a giant game in which, if they are players, they will look brilliant (and, as no small benefit, gain power and/or money themselves). I know, this is not a big shock and seemingly nothing that hasn't been said before. Wow, so powerful people corrupt politics against the interest of most of the population. Call the newswires!
It is not, for me, that this is a point that hasn't been made; but, for me this debate actually showed the potential of another kind of politics that sits outside of media punditocracy. Candidates were forced to interact with (gasp!) a crowd. And, yes, it was raucous. Why was it raucous and why did they not heed Olbermann's pleas to be quiet? Because every single one of the members of that crowd was there to help them make an excruciatingly important choice: Who do I want to be my next President? Who am I going to support by going and knocking on doors (because, let's face it, that is what all of the candidates want, even though, to quote Bill Richardson, all will "continue to take labor's money")? People should be engaged for that decision - it is more scary how passionate most people are.
Olbermann realized this and stopped trying to get them to be quiet. Kucinich realized this and played to the crowd. Clinton tried as best as she could to get into it, but was obviously uncomfortable. Obama has gotten too used to talks in punditry and has lost his community organizing sense. The DLC attack dogs (a.k.a. Dodd and Biden) were too busy attacking Obama and Edwards so that Clinton could look above the fray. And, despite what my esteemed colleague thinks, Richardson didn't make any sense to me (though, apparently, he did much worse last night). And Edwards...John, John, John... No one is there to listen to how you walked the picket line 200 times or have hob-nobbed with labor federation presidents. First, if anyone in that stadium has walked off the job, they have probably walked their own picket line over 200 times. You don't earn credit by walking picket lines X number of times - because you are in a stadium full of people who have done it more. And, second, while you are pandering to the correct people who actually make the endorsements, I would guess that a significant majority of rank-and-file members have a profound distrust for their leadership (and, speaking as a former local president, it is good to have mistrust in one's leaders - they should have to earn it).
So, my horse-race odds casting, though I hate it is as follows. Clinton got out of there unscathed (helped by the fact that there was mysteriously no question about her union-busting lead advisor), Obama looked good, but didn't win much particularly since he was in his home state. Kucinich was the man and Edwards lost, I think, all hope of breaking into the top two. There, I did it.
But, the bigger point that I think that the Democrats can learn from this is the potential power of the crowd. That debate was fun - people cheered, they booed, they waved behind the camera. That is America. Those are the people who give the President their job. I thought that the Democrats lost a huge opportunity during the 2006 State of the Union address. Tim Kaine had just gotten elected governor in a reddish state, the feeling was jubilant, the base was mobilized and people were beginning to realize that the President was out of touch. Bush hardly mentioned New Orleans only four months after the Hurricane and saw fit to talk more about human-animal hybrids. Tim Kaine could have delivered an address "in front of the American people" by giving a public speech to his new constituents in Virginia. And, the symbolism is so stark that even the punditocracy wouldn't miss it - there would be President Bush giving his speech to Congress the ultimate "insider's" venue while the Democratic rebuttal was given to a slice of the American people. The applause wouldn't be staged; no endless sitting and standing, this side clapping, that side sitting on their hands all following the lead of the Majority and Minority Leaders. No, real live people deciding when they would applaud and boo.
But, as long as Clinton and Obama look to get out unscathed, quite literally afraid of the unwashed masses, then progressive politics really have no chance. Despite what the DLC Democrats think, we aren't going to out fundraise or outspend Republicans, but we can, if we find leaders who can, connect with people. It is scary that a single candidate knew how to work that stage in the Democratic primary. And for it, he might have won my vote. Democrats should strategize that.
Via Jeremy Freese, it doesn't look like Guiliani can even count on the support of his daughter. According to this Slatearticle, it looks like she is supporting Obama. Can't see that going down well with the "family-values" conservatives; that is, unless they are as flexible on that as they are on crime and punishment.
For those of you interested in labor's position on politics, there is an interesting NYT piece on where the AFL-CIO and Change to Win federations are in terms of endorsing candidates. I found this link at the blog, Standing with Labor and there is a solid analysis of the situation there. Basically, it breaks down to: 1) Unions don't want to jump on the bandwagon too soon so that they end up endorsing a candidate that has no chance of winning, but 2) if unions want to have the power (and do, in fact, have the power that they already claim), then they need to be able to push for their candidate. Picking someone who will win anyway is like telling the DLC-corporate Democrats, "Go ahead, you make your pick, then we will go along with that and beg for the table scraps from your candidate."
I have no doubt that Edwards is far better on labor issues than Clinton (who will inevitably be the candidate ordained by the New York AFL-CIO and UFT—and, therefore, AFT) and I don't know enough about Obama's record to know about his labor credentials to compare to Edwards. But, what I do know that Edwards has worked his ass off for the nomination of labor and, if they withhold it for the eventual 'winner', unions will be seen for a generation of Democratic candidates as 'fair-weather friends' and will have no influence at all. I can get behind an endorsement of someone I prefer less than my ideal candidate; but I can't get behind wishy-washy-we-don't-want-to-rock-to-many-boats political endorsements that mean more politics-as-horserace crap.
If unions want to reshape the political landscape and pass things like EFCA, then we have to take the leadership, and the attendant risks of leadership, to do it. If they want to be relegated to whining about candidates that never listen, then I don't want to hear it anymore. And, as Jordan point outs, with Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire front-loaded, unions could really be a "king (or queen) maker"; it's up to union members and (to a much to-great extent) leaders to decide.
Jon Stewart thinks that Democrats shouldn't be open about the importance of joining unions... He thinks we need "code words". FF to 3:20 in the video although the part about Obama ringtones is pretty f'ing hilarious.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted on the dismal state of higher rd and argued that, without changing the perception college as a commodity good, i.e. students show up, get "filled" with knowledge and leave -- with their A in hand -- to get a business-based job, then then higher education doesn't stand a chance of overcoming the crazies in this country.
Since then, severalarticles have come out about how higher education is becoming an issue for the 2008 campaign. Beyond that, the K-12 education system has gotten a lot of press about the renewal of the program that seems more destined to destroy our public school system than it is to substantially reduce any inequality in educational outcomes. So, it seems, my pessimistic portrayal of any lack of concern over education seems to be misplaced.
That is not to say, however, that just because education, "K-16 Education" as we liked to call it in Michigan, is getting attention means that anything substantive is necessarily going to come from the debate. Luckily, it seems that, too, is a waivering in my usual optimism and not true. The most public and detailed of these plans is that created by John Edwards called the College for Everyone initiative. Among the things that the plan does would be to create a program for the first year of college to be paid for any student who is willing to work ten hours a week during the year for students who have shown effort in their high school curriculum.
While I want to post on the relative costs and benefits of this plan in a separate post, what I am excited about is the prospect that (via Inside Higher Ed):
In the last week or so, higher education appears to have arrived as a 2008 campaign issue. Democratic candidates are vying to be the boldest defender of student loan borrowers and one in particular — John Edwards — has issued proposals that are unusually detailed for this early in a campaign. And in a sign that Edwards’s move was noticed, Barack Obama followed Tuesday with a plan of his own. [my emphasis]
It is nice to know three things. First, that higher education is a priority and Obama seems to feel the need to react to a major initiative put out by Edwards. Second, that this is one of those issues coming out at the beginning of an election cycle with the possibility of creating a major campaign issue. Also, it would be nice to see this become enough of an issue that the Republicans are asked about it to which all of them would probably look somewhat like a deer in middle of a highway with a Mack truck barrelling towards it. I also have to think that presenting something like this policy so early in the campaign shows that, despite my proclamations to the contrary, people really do care about higher education policy. Finally, it is also nice to know that Edwards has enough of a real shot that Obama and Clinton are scared of him. I have not entirely made up my mind on a candidate, but I am sick and tired of deciding who are "top-tiered" and "second-tiered" candidates based on how much money one has raised a full nine months before the primaries start (well, maybe), and it is, therefore, nice to see Edwards who is somewhere in between have enough of an impact to drive one of the "top-tiered" campaigns.
