While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama do battle in Texas and Ohio today, here’s a bit of news that ought to lighten the mood. Apparently, Obama has a namesake town in western Japan, where many residents have caught Obamamania. The mayor of Obama sent the senator a package of gifts last year hoping to get a response and got a letter back recently. Obama means “small shore” in Japanese.
For unique perspective on Barack Obama check out http://dallasobserver.com/2008-02-28/news/obama-and-me/full ”>this piece by a reporter who covered Obama when he was in the Illinois state legislature.
One of the more interesting tidbits is how Obama hired a Harvard guy to help disqualify his opponents in his first legislative race. I think it’s human nature for black politicians like those mentioned in the story to be pissed about the fact that Obama is getting all the credit right now. As Sen. Mitch McConnell said, the democratic race is between a “New York senator who was born in Illinois, and an Illinois senator who was apparently born in a manger. But in the end you have to look at the larger picture. While Obama isn’t a saint, he may be the best option out there.
In the political battle over image in the democratic presidential campaign, it appears Barack Obama is winning, as he chalks up his ninth victory in a row in Wisconsin. His confidence is growing. As has been argued by Andrew Sullivan and others, Obama himself, represents a conduit to change, his image and leadership could push policy in a positive direction.
Obama is preaching that it takes all of us together to solve our problems as opposed to preaching the politics of us versus them. In Texas, last night he trotted more policy prescriptions to go with hope. By contrast, in her comments tonight, as quoted by The New York Times, Clinton played on people’s fears, a tactic that seemed to work in George W. Bush’s favor, under the orchestrations of Karl Rove.
“This is the choice we face: One of us is ready to be commander in chief in a dangerous world,” Mrs. Clinton said in the remarks, which she also planned to expand upon in a speech in New York City on Wednesday. “One of us has faced serious Republican opposition in the past — and one of us is ready to do it again.”
She implies that Obama is ill-equipped to handle the terrorist threat and deal with Republican dirty tricks. Obama as the nominee, she fears and wants us to fear, is too naive to handle the bad guys in the Middle East and Afghanistan and the bad guys in the other party.
To motivate by fear as any parent or coach can tell you, is effective in the short term, and perhaps in a short election these tactics might work. But the longer this drags on, it gives Obama an edge I think, because hopemongering, with a request for hard work and accountability is something people can buy into long term. Obama’s way may take awhile but it may be the only way. Tough political negotiating is part of the game of course, but if your core values are sound it doesn’t have to disintegrate into cyncism and conning the American people.
A Republican ex-girlfriend of mine called Obama an “empty vessel,” implying that he can give an inspiring speech but lacks the experience and substance to lead the country. She can’t stand McCain and is almost turning to Hillary. In the news cycle, the image you project is your message, your actual message is secondary. For some people there is no there, there. They have nothing beyond the image (see Paris Hilton, Britney Spears). Image (I’m rich, I’m funny, I’m hot, I’m smart, I’m a bad ass; I’m poor, I’m grumpy, I need a makeover, I’m a dumb blonde, I’m a wimp), is just a snapshot, that is only a snippet of truth to make an impression. Obama’s image seems genuine, he is a class act. While he spoke in Seattle he stopped in mid-speech to direct people to help a woman who had fainted in the front row. Afterward he went out and pulled out a megaphone to talk to the several thousand supporters who could not get into Key Arena. There are moments where journalists have been treated shabbily by the Obama campaign, the message being that journalists are “not real people,” and don’t get special privileges. I think the point there is that the Obama campaign wants as much of its message to be filtered through the campaign as opposed to having it being dissected and filtered by the media. There is always a tension there.
Obama’s message as he gains steam, might be becoming more detailed as things roll on. But the key thing is that he trying to motivate by hope and love rather than fear and personal attacks. Is that a winning formula for a political campaign? Time will tell.
But if you consider some of the most admired people of the last century, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr. they motivated people not by fear, but by duty, hope, sacrifice and love.
When Washington’s caucus day arrives Feb. 9 followed by the presidential primary Feb. 19, who will still be in the hunt?
Right now, Barack Obama has the ball and he’s been able to score but can he win? So far it’s looking like he just might.
Like the crazy college football season that concluded with LSU’s win over Ohio State in the Bowl Championship Series national championship game, it’s been a political year where the underdogs have become favorites.
That’s what happened in the Iowa caucuses Jan. 3, when Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee scored convincing wins in Iowa.
Not bad for a guy who Seattle author Sherman Alexie believes has no chance because his middle name is Hussein and for a guy who has eaten squirrel.
Hillary Clinton came in with the most money raised and the Clinton campaign machine behind her. She touted her experience and insinuated that victory would be inevitable.
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney had the most money raised, the confidence and looks.
Both suffered crushing defeats.
Huckabee tapped into populist sentiment and the evangelical Christian vote in Iowa while Obama extended his appeal to women and independents.
All of this of course comes with a bit of caveat. As Clinton pointed out in her caucus night speech, many voters were not represented because to have your vote count you have to show up for a caucus meeting in the early evening. People who couldn’t get baby sitters, hospital staff who work the night shift, waiters and waitresses, cops — the list of people who weren’t represented goes on.
Still, the fact remains that the tacticians in the Clinton campaign couldn’t deliver a victory. But Jan. 8 they rallied for victory in New Hampshire, despite polls that favored Obama, throwing yet another monkey wrench into the campaign.
In 1980s, many Democrats and independents voted for Ronald Reagan, and Obama has similar appeal. Like Reagan, Obama is a great communicator, inspires confidence and makes people feel good about themselves and has a vision. Obama’s critics say he recites too many platitudes such as the “audacity of hope.” While he is eloquent, he lacks experience and his policies are unproven. Then again, Obama’s “hope” mongering is not too dissimilar from what Bill Clinton’s campaign accomplished in 1992, appealing to change and improving the economy. The campaign emphasized that Clinton was “the man from Hope,” referring to Clinton’s hometown.
Clinton is the more experienced pol, and she would offer change as the first woman president. But she’s not an outsider, she’s a D.C., New York insider.
U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee and Sen. Maria Cantwell both endorsed Clinton. Inslee touted Clinton’s experience and her ability to win.
“The people of Washington are ready for change. There is too much at stake to take chances after the last seven years. We need a candidate who has been through the fire and knows how to lead,” Inslee said in a press release. “She has the toughness, experience, and resolve needed to end the Iraq war and begin rebuilding America’s image around the world.”
Construction on the 700-mile U.S.-Mexican border fence could begin as early as January. Activists are still trying to stop it and some of the most vocal opponents are local business people in U.S. border towns. Members of the chamber of commerce in McAllen, Texas believe a fence could send a message to Mexican customers, up to 70 percent of their business, that they are not wanted, according to the McAllen Monitor. Other than making anti-illegal immigration demagogues happy it’s doubtful that this fence will accomplish much of anything, other than waste money and create unintended consequences.
Back in May, the Washington state House and Senate unanimously voted to approve Senate Bill 5926 which created the Joint Legislative Task Force on the Underground Economy in the Construction Industry. It’s estimated, according to the bill, that between 20 and 50 percent of the employment in the construction industry is unreported to the state. That’s only a guess.
Although immigration is not mentioned in the bill, one would assume that among these workers are illegal immigrants mostly from south of the U.S. border. The government’s main concern in this matter, as stated in the bill, is that unreported workers mean no payroll taxes are being paid to federal and state agencies, including workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation taxes. For the workers, who are open to discrimination and exploitation, they cannot collect workers’ compensation if they are injured or unemployment if they are laid off. The purpose of the task force, according to the bill, “is to formulate a state policy to establish cohesion and transparency betweeen state agencies so as to increase the oversight and regulation of the underground economy practices in the construction industry in this state.” Part of this includes the pervasiveness of the unreported employment and projected costs to the state, as well as to the workers who operate underground.
The task force includes Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle) the chairwoman of the Senate Labor, Commerce, Research and Development Committee and Sen. Jim Clements (R-Selah) the ranking minority member of the committee. Also represented are Rep. Steve Conway (D-Tacoma) the chairman of the of the House Commerce and Labor Committee and Rep. Cary Condotta (R-Wenatchee) the ranking minority member of that committee. Four labor representatives nominated by statewide labor organizations are on the task force along with four business representatives Among the business representatives is Hilary Stern, executive director of CASA Latina, a day labor organization that serves Latino immigrants. Four non-voting members representing the Department of Labor and Industries, Employment Security Department and Department of Revenue serve as liasions to the task force.
The Institute for Public Policy or another entity with expertise will be charged with coming up with the numbers. Draft recommendations are due Nov. 30, with a draft report due Dec. 15, and a final report to the Legislature due Jan. 1, 2008. Locally, Latino workers can be found congregating in Shoreline looking to be picked up for work. While this is typical in eastern Washington, in more rural western Washington cities like Mount Vernon and in Oregon, it appears to be newer in the north Seattle suburbs. The Enterprise plans to examine how this has emerged locally in an upcoming issue.
Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s announcement yesterday that he will form a committee to explore a run at the presidency in 2008, is fueling the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans who are inspired by the tall, skinny guy with the funny name.
Who is Obama and does he have the stamina and experience to win the presidency and take on the most challenging job in the world?
His two books, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope , lend insight to the life story of Obama, his intellect, his beliefs and his approach to politics. He fits well within the Democratic party but is beholden to no particular ideology, his positions generally pragmatic. He may be too willing to negotiate for some on the left but his ability to find common ties with the other side is a strength. He has strong beliefs but is not unnecessarily confrontational. His compelling personal story, a son of a white mother from Kansas and black Kenyan father, speaks to people across racial and class lines.
If Obama can survive the scrutiny, raise the funds and emerge from the shadow of Hillary, he very well could find himself in the White House. He has the charisma and intelligence to lead. He has been described as a man who makes people feel conifident in themselves. The big question that dogs him is his lack of experience with only two years in the U.S. Senate behind him. Then again, many experienced politicians have made questionable decisions and been dragged down in scandal. Maybe some new blood is in order. About a century and a half ago, Americans voted in a president from Illinois with little national experience. His name, of course, was Abraham Lincoln.
So Congress voted for a bill, signed into law by President Bush earlier this month, to build a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexican border at a cost of at least $2 billion. Is this a solution to our illegal immigration problem or a band-aid promoted by some in Congress to capitalize on the anti-immigrant sentiment in the country? See this Washington Post story that includes interviews those with experience on the border who believe this is no solution.
Thousands of desperate Mexicans risk their lives to get into this country by any means necessary and some die tragically in the deserts of the Southwest. Reported deaths on the U.S.-Mexican border have doubled since 1995 and those numbers are most likely underreported.
Click here for the GAO report on the deaths of migrants trying to cross the border. This is an economic problem that expensive fences are not going to solve. Where there is a will there’s a way and people may be deterred for awhile but not stopped.
When American parents take their children out of the public school system and send them to private school, most people recognize that they are simply doing what they perceive is best for their children. That’s their right and no one criticizes them for that. Many parents would do the same if they could. But when people from Mexico come here—granted some illegally—and get jobs that most Americans won’t take, to provide what they perceive to be a better life for their families, the hard-liners argue they are criminals who are mooching off the system. From their perspective, they are here to make a better life for themselves. But is it really at Americans’ expense? That’s a tough question.
First off, whether or not you believe illegal immigrants ought to be here, they do buy stuff and pay sales taxes. Secondly, immigrant laborers from Latin America, legal and illegal, are a significant part of the construction industry and the people who harvest most of the fruits and vegetables you eat. (Having worked at farms and nurseries during the summers in middle school, high school and college, picking strawberries and cutting flowers, the Mexican workers were the most efficient.) As far as screening for illegals, its the employer’s responsiblity but no matter how thorough and legit the employer is, illegals can slip through because they lack the time and money or will to go over everyone’s papers with a fine-toothed comb. Many places use the same workers year after year but when there is crop to be harvested or building to be built and Jose shows up with his cousin Lupe, you might just hire Lupe because he knows Jose (networks of family and friends often is how migrants find work) and not check his papers very closely if at all. The demand exists for workers and Mexicans are in supply. For more information on Mexican migrants economic transition to America, especially among undocumented workers see this Pew Hispanic Center report from 2005
A third point about immigration, is that all of us, unless you are Native American or a descendant of black slaves, got a break to get into this country. Who decided or decides who is legal or illegal? At times in our history, laws have been passed to limit the numbers of those from particular ethnicities (in the 1920s after 14 million immigrants came between 1900 and 1920, quotas were set with Anglo-Saxons being favored and other groups usually black and yellow people, along with Jews, slavs, Latins and other being severely limited [see A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, p. 382) Of course, cheap immigrant labor is something that’s fine and dandy, as it was with Chinese building the railroads in the 1880s. However, the Chinese were not welcome as equals.
Still in light of all of the above, we do need to manage immigration, especially from Mexico. Illegal immigrants need to come out of the shadows. One way to accomplish this is to grant the illegals who are here working productively legal status so they won’t be exploited by employers and so competition for wages and contracts is fair among building contractors and farmers. Some politicians hate the idea of amnesty but as long as there is work here people will come, that’s the reality. If illegals turn out to be drug runners or involved in other criminal activity they should be deported, but most are here simply to work. Finally, the only way to slow illegal immigration is to encourage, support and enact political pressure on Mexico and other Latin American countries to build better market economies and better educational systems that can support more stable and better paying jobs for their citizens. The economic inequality in those countries is prompting people to go to El Norte. None of this is easy or cheap but it’s the pragmatic approach. Building fences are costly too and won’t solve the problem in the long-term. Besides as comedian Carlos Mencia put it, who is going to build the fence anyway?
As a journalist or anyone who seeks to be objective, one has to look at countering points of view and based on the evidence, draw conclusions. That involves more than reporting in the “he said,” “she said” format. It means attempting to uncover the truth, a much more difficult, but ultimately more beneficial task.
Read here what President Bush told the country when we went to war in Iraq, vowing to defeat the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein and free the Iraqi people.
But the week before U.S. forces invaded Iraq, my congressman, Jay Inslee, made this speech on the House floor questioning the decision to go to war. Unfortunately, many of the fears he expressed have proven to be true. Bush promised democracy. So far we’ve seen mostly anarchy. The unintended consequence of this war as Inslee and others warned is that it would divert our attention and provide traction to al-Qaeda, the biggest threat to our security, as well cost American lives.
Undoubtedly, things will get worse in Iraq before they get better. The question is how long will it take, if it’s even possible, to establish a government and police force that can maintain order.
While our government squanders hundreds of billions of dollars on a war with no end in sight, we have squabbles in our public school districts on how to spend shrinking resources. Meanwhile, in Darfur, genocide continues and North Korea and Iran are closer to going nuclear. While the so-called leadership of the two major parties blame each other in the press, it’s clear that the only hope is to elect a new chief executive who will not “stay the course.” The list of candidates are not promising. An intriguing matchup would be Barack Obama against John McCain but Obama probably isn’t ready and McCain might not win his party’s nomination.
Do most people live by a moral and ethical code or belief system? And if they say they do, are they accountable to it? The media cluster coverage of the downfall of U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who sent Congressional male pages e-mails tinged with sexual innuendo, seems to point to the hypocrisy of man who publicly painted himself as a social conservative and chaired a committee on the exploitation of children. (As a former House page myself, I think most pages are astute enough to see someone like Foley for the buffoon that he is.) Now of course no one is perfect, we’re human after all, but I think people can be divided into four categories: people who live by a moral/ethical code and practice it; people who say they live by a moral/ethical code but do otherwise; people who do not believe morality/ethics matter; and finally people who would prefer to behave morally and ethically but because of poverty or other desperate circumstance break the code to survive (such as immigrants to come here illegally for a better life). Of course, at one time or another we shift between those categories.
Just an observation of people in general and especially those in power.