Three Simple Things You Can Do Today to Make Barack Obama the Next President of the United States

By now, you’ve probably realized that Andy and I are both very much in favor of Senator Obama. If you are, too. Here are three simple things you can do to help him get elected president.

• Vote in the MoveOn.org primary. If you’re a member of the progressive MoveOn.org site, be sure to vote for Senator Obama in their primary. Getting MoveOn to throw their weight behind Obama will help in major Super Tuesday states, especially California.
• Check out YouBama and link to their videos.
• Put up an Obama bug on your sidebar to show your support, just like the one we’ve posted.

Will Hoge Concert Tonight!!!

I’m so dadburned excited I think I might pop! I’m going to see Will Hoge play tonight at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard tonight.

This guy is like if Johnny Cash had a baby with John Mayer. I can’t believe I get to see him in a 400 person venue! What’s better, I get to see him in a 400 person venue with some of my favorite people in the universe: Andy, Ian, Mark, Megan, Arjun and Rama are all in for the treat of their lives.

::Initiates booting of happy dance module and floats in concentric circles around the house::

Don’t Worry, the Superheroes are Coming Back!

I’ve received a number of e-mails (and Facebook pings, and direct Tweets) from concerned readers who want to know why Andy and I chose to get rid of the superheroes that used to grace this site.

Well, as you guys have probably gathered by now, Andy and I broke off our engagement a few months ago. It was obviously a very amicable — even amiable — parting. But somehow, the old banner no longer fit.

Thankfully, the woman who drew the first banner is my womb to tomb girlfriend Dylan Meconis. She is in the process of drawing us a couple of brand new superheroes. I won’t reveal exactly what our two cartoonish caped crusaders will be up to, I want you guys to be surprised.

But trust me, the superheroes are coming. I only pray they’ll be in time to rescue us all.

On Mortality and Acceptance

My dad and I had lunch this afternoon with a longtime family friend who will soon be celebrating his 80th birthday. He pointed out a phenomenon that I’ve been noticing recently: time seems to move a lot faster the older you get.

It makes perfect sense if you think about it. Each second you’re alive, a second becomes a smaller fraction of your total experience. In other words, where x = the number of seconds you’ve experienced, and y = the subjective experience of the length of a second, y = 1/x. If you look at this on a graph, it plots out something like this:

Obviously this is a gross oversimplification. The sensation of time passing is impacted by other variables. The moments tend to go more quickly when you’re having a good time. And we all know how the seconds can seem to stand still in a boring meeting. But in general, this graph resembles what a human’s perception of time should look like.

At first, this can seem like a terrible thing. Life begins so lazily that we take it for granted, then it’s over before we know it. It’s enough to make us do crazy things. Botox, sports cars at midlife, and even the truly substantive achievements of modern medicine are all responses to our ingrained knowledge of one central reality: we are mortal.

Life grows exponentially shorter by the second. Everything changes. We get crow’s feet. We are no longer children. Everyone we love will someday die. We can struggle mightily against these truths, or we can accept them and muddle along.

It’s hard, but I’m working on doing the latter. How are you faring with this?

Edwards, Guiliani Drop Out

Last week I predicted that Edwards would drop out shortly after taking a distance third in South Carolina. Likewise for Guiliani with Florida.

Yesterday Rudy Guiliani’s campaign leaked that he will be dropping out and endorsing John McCain. Today John Edwards officially dropped out.

So now we are down to two in each party. My apologies to Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, but at this point, after poor showings in Florida and a lack of resources or endorsements, it seems that it will take a miracle for them to take even a single state next Tuesday. As Edwards saw, once two strong candidates emerge, nobody pays much attention to number three. There is, after all, a reason why a two-party system has evolved in this country.

Going back to Edwards, I truly respect what he tried to accomplish as a candidate. I give him the benefit of the doubt that he “ran for the little people” and to “change Washington”, rather than for personal glory and grandeur (see Hillary Clinton.) I expect he will make an excellent Vice President or Attorney General.

I also expect Edwards to back Obama shortly after Super Tuesday. I think he will hold off before then, because if Hillary blows out Obama, Edwards is going to be looking for a position in Clinton’s cabinet. However, after watching him in the debates, it is pretty clear which candidate he would prefer, and if Obama is still just as viable as Hillary on February 6th, you can expect Edward’s endorsement, along with his 26 delegates, on February 7th.

Will Edwards’ Exit from Democratic Race Help Clinton or Obama?

Since John Edwards didn’t offer his support to either of the remaining two Democratic candidates when he dropped out of the race today, it’s anyone’s guess which candidate his decision will benefit more.

My gut to tells me that Hillary Clinton has the most to gain from all this. Edwards was an establishment candidate, after all. Four years ago, he was our vice-presidential nominee. His campaign was based on the divisive notion that the rich don’t really give two craps about the poor. Those kinds of divisions seem more at home in the Clinton camp than in the Obama one.

I hope I’m wrong. What do you guys think?

Bricks & 1410: A Photoset

During my errand running today, I noticed some very photo-worthy stuff. Thankfully, I brought my camera.Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

The Democratic Primary in Washington Doesn’t Matter, and Other Tales

I’ve had about 40 tabs open in Firefox for the past few days because I’ve come across so much interesting content that deserves posting and commentary. So it’s time for one of my big long lists o’links. I’ll start with the one you all need to read. The rest are optional.

Here we go:

• The difference between the Washington primaries and the caucuses. Did you know that the Republican primary counts in Washington, but only the caucuses count for the Democrats? Some of the rules of this system are so damned arcane. But if you’re supporting a Democrat, please don’t let the primary ballot you get in the mail stop you from turning out on caucus day.
• You know the whole “youth pastor watch” thing that the Slog does? If this guy were a youth pastor, he’d definitely make the list. Why is it that the morality police are so often the people doing dirty stuff?
• The money quote from this excoriation of Hillary Clinton: “After the dreariest and most destructive presidency in memory, Americans have a right to expect better than what you are giving them.“
• Nothing makes it clearer that it’s still all about Bill than the Onion’s great satirical piece entitled, “Bill Clinton:  ‘Screw It, I’m Running for President’.”
• Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama in which she calls him, “a president like my father.” And a great collection of articles about the impact of the Kennedy family’s endorsement.
• A great comparison of the worldviews of the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

McCain, Clinton Take Disgraceful Victories In Florida

Politics as usual. Politics at its worst. Today John McCain used the same dishonest politics that he was disgusted by 8 years ago to defeat Mitt Romney in Florida, while Hillary ignored a signed statement and her word by declaring “victory” in Florida.

While John McCain talked a lot in Iowa and New Hampshire about the importance of honesty, integrity, and “clean” politics, he appeared to have a change of heart this week. McCain spent the past week blasting rival Mitt Romney’s statements on Iraq and economy with the type of half-truths, insinuations, and exaggerations that I call lies.

For example, McCain pounded Romney repeatedly for his comment supporting a timetable for withdrawl. McCain compared Romney’s stance to that of Hillary Clinton. What Romney ACTUALLY said was that a private meeting with the President of Iraq discussing the possibility of secret timetables and benchmarks might be a good idea.

Then McCain ripped Romney for saying that “military service is not a real job.” What Romney actually said was that he was the only candidate with private-sector business experience. It appears the Straight-Talk Express is now the Saying-Anything-To-Get-Elected Train.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton showed up in Florida to give a victory speech in which she promised she was
“going to take your voices, your concerns, your hopes, your dreams” to the White House. She also pledged to give Florida delegates a seat and a vote at the Florida convention.

This is of course, after Hillary spent months expressing her full support for a measure stripping the Florida delegates of their votes. Oh, and she signed a pledged promising not campaign in Florida. But now that she can feel Barack Obama slowly sliding the thrown out from under her, she is willing to do anything.

Giuliani Looks Set to Exit Republican Race After McCain Takes Florida

Unlike the Florida Democratic primary, which seems to matter to only one (entirely hypocritical) candidate. The Republican primary there is shaping up to be quite decisive. After finishing a distant third to McCain and Romney, it appears that Rudy Giuliani’s presidential hopes have been dashed.

I, for one, am thrilled. Giuliani scares me even more than Mike Huckabee. Last summer, I read an article about his cowboy mentality that really scared me. He seems to have the same “my way or the highway” attitude that got our current president into the hot mess in Iraq.

I grew even more anxious after reading that he tried to expand his power and extend his mayoral term after 9/11, I knew we would be in trouble with this guy. After all, the expansion of executive power has been a primary aim of this administration — particularly from Cheney’s camp. This has resulted in secrecy, paranoia and plenty of unconstitutionality.

I don’t know whether we’ll see this with a Romney administration or not, but I’m fairly certain that a McCain administration would behave in a way that’s constitutional. I might not always agree with him, but I’m pretty sure I’d vote for him over Hillary the hypocrite.

Lower By The Day

That’s my view of the Clinton camp. There was a time in fact, when I preferred Hillary to Barack. That was after the first major televised debate between the two. However, it seems that every day Hillary shows me that she only cares about winning, and truly will “do or say anything to get elected.”

Today Hillary took things to a new low by campaigning in Florida. For the past several months, the Florida Democratic primary has been a non-issue. It shouldn’t be, since the state was stripped of its delegates and candidates pledged not to campaign there after the state moved its primary up to January 29th.

But, after a crushing blow in South Carolina, Hillary is feeling the need to stunt Obama’s momentum. She went to Florida this week, campaigned today, is running a get out the vote campaign, and plans to deliver a victory speech. This is pure hypocrasy. After pledging several times in New Hampshire not to focus on Florida, she breaks her word at the last second.

The conventional wisdom is that Hillary is going to easily win Florida, just as she won Michigan. Any state where neither Hillary nor Obama has an opportunity to campaign, she is going to win. The more time in where people have time to hear both of them speak, Hillary does worse over time and Obama does better.

I hope Hillary somehow loses Florida though, particularly given the HUGE turnout in Florida where Democrats are coming out in record numbers anyway. If she loses after her last-second campaigning and planning her victory speech, it will be as embarassing as it gets.

Hillary is also pushing to have Michigan and Florida’s delegates counted at the convention. There used to be only one word to describe Hillary Clinton. Inevitable. Now there’s a new one. Classless.

Kennedy Family’s Obama Endorsement Focuses on Change Message

Today was a pretty remarkable one in American politics. As Dave Winer so memorably tweeted, “Live on MSNBC it’s like Obama is being bar mitzvah’d into the Kennedy family.” And indeed, it did seem like Teddy Kennedy passed the  family torch directly into Obama’s hands.

What made this so remarkable was that the representatives of truly dynastic power in the Democratic Party were handing their support to the anti-dynastic candidate. The Kennedys walked into that room and handed their special brand of political magic over to a newcomer, an outsider, a change agent. Today, they remembered what made their family great to begin with and they gave it away freely.

Touchingly, Senator Kennedy cited his brother’s famous “ask not what your country can do for you” speech. He compared Obama’s unifying message of hope, hard work, personal responsibility and community pride to that clarion call. The emotion in the room was absolutely palpable. I halfway expected Obama to cry. He almost did.

I got patriotic tingles.

Today we saw the last of Hillary Clinton’s mantle of inevitability fall away. The momentum is really on Obama’s side now.

The End of Earmarks?

President Bush is planning announcing an end to earmarks with tonight’s State of the Union, by ordering federal agencies to ignore legislative earmarks. While this is a significant expansion of executive power, it appears to be the only way earmarks will be eliminated. Is the potential for a more balanced budget and less corrupt Congress worth an continuing increase in Presidential power?

Kennedy Endorses Obama

Ted Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama today, despite repeated phone calls from former President Clinton urging him to remain neutral (or back Hillary). As the second-longest serving member of Congress, the heir to Camelot, and the Democratic party’s icon of liberalism, Kennedy’s endorsement speech derailed criticism that Obama lacks experience or liberal credentials. Obama has so far done poorly with older, blue-collar white voters; the hero of that voting block for the past 45 years will help make serious inroads.

Kennedy’s speech (below) was as inspiring as it gets. After numerous references to JFK and RFK in the press, hearing the brother of those men making the same reference gives it a whole new weight. This man can inspire our nation the same way that John Kennedy inspired us in the 1960’s. The of message of hope and inspiration in the same message which John Kennedy used to transform a nation.

It’s hard to hear Kennedy and Obama speak and not believe that, as Ted Kennedy put it, our best days are still to come. After the cynicism, bitterness, divisiveness and pessimism I’ve felt over the past three years, I thought it would be hard to hope that America can still be great. But a candidate like Obama makes it easy.

P.S. As I mentioned in an early post, notice how excited people are wherever Barack goes. Does any another candidate get people that excited?

Just What Does Obama Mean by Change? You Can’t Find Out From a Soundbite

My good friend Ben Adlin wrote a great blog post earlier this month debunking the popular criticism of Barack Obama that he’s all rhetoric and no substance. The money quote:

The problem, I think, is that Obama’s message doesn’t fit easily into soundbites, drastically hurting his ability to respond to everyone’s favorite criticism. And so those too lazy to do their homework fall back on the same argument they’ve heard their smart Republican friends (or Hillary supporters) use: that Obama simply has been ‘too vague’ or ‘hollow’ in his description of just what he means by ‘change’.

This is, I think, part of what Obama feels is broken about our political dialogue. People want arguments made in ten-second clips, in thirty words or less. The truth is, politics are messy. Oversimplification is friendly, but it’s ultimately misleading.

It’s not as simple as asking, “Yes, but what does he mean by ‘change’?” and then expecting a concise response. That’s not an argument. After all, the response can’t be concise; most liberals (and, I hope, conservatives) recognize that much about our country needs reform. Yet because it can’t be printed on a bumper sticker, the apathetic American voter thinks that Obama’s message lacks substance.

Maybe what needs to change is us: our expectation that politics be spoon-fed, our quickness to jump all over the other guy because it helps us score points. Outlining how to change these things is difficult. Historically, pulling huge numbers of people together from disparate groups has required strength of character, near-genius, and powerful rhetoric.

Aren’t these the areas where Obama shines?

Quite right, Ben. You’re in good company taking that position. Just check out Daniel Koffler’s article in The Guardian Unlimited from the following day for a great rundown of Obama’s policy perspectives.

Still, I think it’s naive of us to think that the American people are going to wake up overnight and read lengthy articles like Koffler’s to get their political information. Unfortunately, most people just aren’t that involved. Yes, Obama can move the nation in that direction, even with his candidacy. But he needs to be aware that we’re working from a short attention span here.

I’m curious what you guys think. If you were Barack Obama, how would you combat the erroneous “style over substance” argument?

[Via Jasimus Maximus a.k.a. "Jason Preston."]

Obama Takes HUGE Win In South Carolina

[Editor's note:  This post has been edited for clarity by Teresa because when Andy gets excited about politics, he apparently loses the ability to spell and punctuate.]

Yesterday was a good day for me personally, and a great day for America politically. Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary. He didn’t just beat Hillary Clinton. He destroyed her.

Barack Obama came in with 55 percent of the vote, compared with Hillary’s 27 percent. But the victory is not what mattered. What matters is why and how Obama won, and how Hillary reacted to the loss.

There has been a little bit of bickering recently between the two camps. But the Clinton camp has been the one that has been hitting hard. After placing third in Iowa, Hillary freaked out. So she turned to Bill. She unleashed the most popular member of the Democratic party upon the second most popular member. Bill was her attack dog in New Hampshire and Nevada, attacking Obama left and right. And you know what? It worked. Hillary won a surprise victory in New Hampshire, and the Good-Cop Bad-Cop routine these two are playing appear to be a winning combination.

But what they had not counted on, is that people are tired of dirty politics. They are smarter. Rovian trash politics failed this time around in South Carolina. Hope triumphed over cynicism, and Obama trounced Clinton, then delivered an exhilarating victory speech.

But here’s where I lost all respect for Hillary. She didn’t hang around to see who won. She knew she wasn’t going to win, so she started to spin. “South Carolina doesn’t matter” was the implicit message coming out of the Clinton camp the second the race was called for Obama, as Hillary turned tail and split to Nashville. Hillary’s concession speech was, I found, disrespectful to Obama, in that it give no mention to his victory.

Lastly, for those of you out there who still support Hillary. I have one only argument: forget about the difference between Obama and Hillary as a President. They may both be good. Hillary may be better than Obama. Obama may be better than Hillary. But Hillary cannot win the general election. And Obama can. The reason is very simple. Watch the links below.

Obama inspires and excites.

Hillary sedates.

Dukakis, Dole, Gore, and Kerry lost because they put people to sleep. Kennedy, Clinton (Bill), and Bush (43) all won because they excited people.

P.S. Watch Edward’s concession speech too. I don’t care what he says, he won’t stay through the convention.

“The Past vs. The Future”

Money quote from Obama’s victory speech tonight:

“The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders,” Obama said. “It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.

“It’s about the past versus the future.”

Andy has just pointed out to me that, “since this is Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama, it means that he’s calling her the past and himself the future.”

I’d say that’s pretty accurate. She wants to back in time to the 1990’s. He wants to take us forward.

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