Voting is still underway but the outcome is already clear - Obama will win by either a modest or large number of electoral votes and probably about 54% or more of the popular vote.
Election and electoral irregularities, negative campaign strategies, and the flaws of Democracy aside, all Americans should be very proud that our nation will once again make our qauadrennial peaceful transition of executive leadership from one administration to another after a national vote.
The Obama victory will likely be viewed for centuries as one of the most significant transformative events in American history both as one of the largest swings from "conservative Republican" to liberal Democrat leadership. Obama's rise to the presidency also is something of a nail in the coffin for the pervasive but wrong race-based mythology that has suggested for a generation that America could never transcend our history of predjudice and elect an African American to the highest office.
Yet Americans can trancend the challenges of our past.
We just did.
For more about the US History check out "History and Travel" blog and website.
Showing posts with label president. Show all posts
Showing posts with label president. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Truth vs Lies
American campaigns are no stranger to falsehood, lies, and character attacks. That has been going on since the days of Washington and the rocky birth of our remarkable Democratic experiment.
However that does not make the practice appealing, and clearly in the current campaign it has been the McCain campaign that has gone the farthest to bring up irrelevant nonsense and distort the truth.
Following up on many of the right wing claims about Obama has been an exercise in frustration and shoddy thinking by Obama detractors. This has taken the form of crazy nonsense like the notion Obama was born in Kenya to juxtaposing Obama quotes to make a very reasonable statement seem unreasonable.
Just today I reviewed a bogus claim that Obama, writing at Daily KOS
two years ago, had called for removing moderates from the Senate. Incredibly the writer had simply taken something Obama said should NOT be done in the interest of moderate approaches and then lifted the words in such as way to make it appear to state opposite. These cases of blog fraud or incomprehensibly stupid lack of reading comprehension would not be so bad if they were not immediately picked up by other sites and presented as "fact" along with the misquotes or lies.
Even mainstream media "fact checking" is often very questionable. The latest "guilt by association" play suggests Obama is pals with a Palestinian activist named Khalidi, now a professor and consultant. One of the challenges in this case is that a John McCain board gave a Khalidi consultancy over $450,000 for projects polling in the middle east. Most of McCain's campaign has tried to rely on painfully weak connections to figures that mainstream Americans find objectionable in one way or another. Thankfully that strategy appears to have failed - and perhaps we can hope this is because we as voters have become more reasonable rather than simply because the McCain campaign failed to make the smears stick.
All the smears have happened within a context of an arguably very unqualified Republican VP nominee hit with abuse of power charges *during the campaign* and McCain's very challenged personal history. The Obama campaign has chose not to focus on the personalities and character of the opposition, and stayed squarely on message in a near-flawless and mostly positive campaign. Will this approach succeed? If so, can we expect future campaigns to take a higher road than in the past?
However that does not make the practice appealing, and clearly in the current campaign it has been the McCain campaign that has gone the farthest to bring up irrelevant nonsense and distort the truth.
Following up on many of the right wing claims about Obama has been an exercise in frustration and shoddy thinking by Obama detractors. This has taken the form of crazy nonsense like the notion Obama was born in Kenya to juxtaposing Obama quotes to make a very reasonable statement seem unreasonable.
Just today I reviewed a bogus claim that Obama, writing at Daily KOS
two years ago, had called for removing moderates from the Senate. Incredibly the writer had simply taken something Obama said should NOT be done in the interest of moderate approaches and then lifted the words in such as way to make it appear to state opposite. These cases of blog fraud or incomprehensibly stupid lack of reading comprehension would not be so bad if they were not immediately picked up by other sites and presented as "fact" along with the misquotes or lies.
Even mainstream media "fact checking" is often very questionable. The latest "guilt by association" play suggests Obama is pals with a Palestinian activist named Khalidi, now a professor and consultant. One of the challenges in this case is that a John McCain board gave a Khalidi consultancy over $450,000 for projects polling in the middle east. Most of McCain's campaign has tried to rely on painfully weak connections to figures that mainstream Americans find objectionable in one way or another. Thankfully that strategy appears to have failed - and perhaps we can hope this is because we as voters have become more reasonable rather than simply because the McCain campaign failed to make the smears stick.
All the smears have happened within a context of an arguably very unqualified Republican VP nominee hit with abuse of power charges *during the campaign* and McCain's very challenged personal history. The Obama campaign has chose not to focus on the personalities and character of the opposition, and stayed squarely on message in a near-flawless and mostly positive campaign. Will this approach succeed? If so, can we expect future campaigns to take a higher road than in the past?
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Obamercial
Pundits are wondering if Obama pulled in a few more voters with tonight's 30 minute five million dollar multi-network commercial extravaganza.
I think that was only a small part of their objective as they probably only gained a point or so across the board and gaining votes is near-meaningless in California, New York, and most of the heavily populated states (and expensive media markets) that are already lined up for Obama in terms of electoral votes - the only votes that matter in the big show.
However this was yet another master stroke of the nearly flawless Obama campaign. Why? It runs out the clock for two full days with only 6 days until the main election day, and with many people voting over the next few days in early voting areas. Obama does not need votes now - he needs to simply maintain his sizable lead. The status quo is Obama's friend and this piece helps to maintain that for him in addition to address, in a very stylish fashion, key concerns of key groups he needs.
As with most of the Axlerod innovations this was brilliant and another reason the Obama campaign is likely to go down as *the best run big campaign* in American political history.
I think that was only a small part of their objective as they probably only gained a point or so across the board and gaining votes is near-meaningless in California, New York, and most of the heavily populated states (and expensive media markets) that are already lined up for Obama in terms of electoral votes - the only votes that matter in the big show.
However this was yet another master stroke of the nearly flawless Obama campaign. Why? It runs out the clock for two full days with only 6 days until the main election day, and with many people voting over the next few days in early voting areas. Obama does not need votes now - he needs to simply maintain his sizable lead. The status quo is Obama's friend and this piece helps to maintain that for him in addition to address, in a very stylish fashion, key concerns of key groups he needs.
As with most of the Axlerod innovations this was brilliant and another reason the Obama campaign is likely to go down as *the best run big campaign* in American political history.
Friday, October 10, 2008
McCain challenges nonsense about Obama
John McCain deserves praise for his statements making it very clear that Obama is an honorable man and candidate. "He's a decent family man citizen...he's a person you do not have to be scared...." said McCain to a crowd that clearly wanted a speech with more red baiting and red meat.
Although the McCain campaign has crossed the line many times using guilt-by-association to try to to paint Obama as a supporter of terror and other nonsense, but it's great to see John McCain taking the microphone away from a lady as she said "Obama is an Arab" and pointing out to his supporters that Obama poses no threat to the stability of the country.
Spirited politics has a long history in the USA, but as the Obama lead grows and frustration mounts all Americans should be very concerned about the tone of the anti-Obama rhetoric, which at it's extreme is supporting violence.
A sure way to betray the proud ideals of American freedom is to threaten to silence opposing ideas with violence. I'm very glad to see John McCain backing away from supporters who don't seem to understand that.
Although the McCain campaign has crossed the line many times using guilt-by-association to try to to paint Obama as a supporter of terror and other nonsense, but it's great to see John McCain taking the microphone away from a lady as she said "Obama is an Arab" and pointing out to his supporters that Obama poses no threat to the stability of the country.
Spirited politics has a long history in the USA, but as the Obama lead grows and frustration mounts all Americans should be very concerned about the tone of the anti-Obama rhetoric, which at it's extreme is supporting violence.
A sure way to betray the proud ideals of American freedom is to threaten to silence opposing ideas with violence. I'm very glad to see John McCain backing away from supporters who don't seem to understand that.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
48% to 40% with 117 days to go
Barack Obama maintains a very strong lead in the US Presidential race as we close in on the final stretch after what seems like an eternity of campaigning. In fact I think "campaign fatigue" is working in Obama's favor both because he's the guy going into the final few months with the big mo as well as the guy with stamina that will certainly last through the end of this election. Although yesterday's Iran comments by both candidates were weak, McCain stumbled so badly one almost had to wonder if he was suffering from some sort of mental lapse during the interview.
The latest polls appear to show the huge McCain Obama gap closing, but it's not clear to me how significant this is, or even how significant the polls are at this stage. Look for undecided voters in the tossup states to be the critical factor in this election. Obama cannot lose California or New York, and McCain cannot lose several states in the South. It is the voters in Florida, Ohio, Michigan, and other close states that will push somebody over the top, and it will not necessarily be the candidate with the most votes. In fact I'd argue Obama is very likely to win the national popular vote by at least a million, but this will not necessarily translate into the electoral votes needed to win. In fact the electoral college was in part designed to equalize smaller states and larger ones and the smaller states are more conservative, so McCain will likely benefit from more folly in what has become the questionable legacy of our seriously flawed electoral college system.
The latest polls appear to show the huge McCain Obama gap closing, but it's not clear to me how significant this is, or even how significant the polls are at this stage. Look for undecided voters in the tossup states to be the critical factor in this election. Obama cannot lose California or New York, and McCain cannot lose several states in the South. It is the voters in Florida, Ohio, Michigan, and other close states that will push somebody over the top, and it will not necessarily be the candidate with the most votes. In fact I'd argue Obama is very likely to win the national popular vote by at least a million, but this will not necessarily translate into the electoral votes needed to win. In fact the electoral college was in part designed to equalize smaller states and larger ones and the smaller states are more conservative, so McCain will likely benefit from more folly in what has become the questionable legacy of our seriously flawed electoral college system.
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