This post will be controversial, so please forgive me.

As I stood in Grant Park on election night, tears ran down my face as I watched the people around me hug and and cheer and yell and celebrate.  To see the faces of the African Americans around me as they realized the culmination of decades of hopes and dreams was overwhelming.  A part of me felt as if I was spying on their most private moments.  But I was honored to be there, honored to be a small part of their journeys, honored to have been a small part of the Obama movement.  I was so happy and overjoyed as my fellow Americans finally felt as if they were full participants and citizens of this nation.  I said a prayer of thanks to God for each and every one of them.

And then I got home.

The gay marriage ban passed in Florida.  The gay marriage ban passed in Arizona.  The gay marriage ban passed in California.  So while one portion of the nation felt a freedom and belonging they had never experienced before... I sat on my sofa with a pit in my stomach. In this nation, I am still less than equal.  So while I celebrate history and the significance of this moment...I realize it is not my moment.  It is not for me.  I don't get to feel it.  I can only recognize it on the the faces and in the lives of the people around me. 

And the irony?  Post election evaluation has shown the greater African American turnout in the vote in California is one of the major factors that caused the ban on gay marriage to pass.  The African American community overwhelmingly voted in favor of Proposition 8.  It breaks my heart.  I am saddened that a group that is finally realizing the dreams of freedom would vote to deny someone else their pathway to freedom.

I am always annoyed when people try to compare the civil rights struggle of African Americans and Gay Americans.  My gay community can never understand what it has been like to be black in America in the last 200 years.  To try and compare the two journeys is offensive to the history of abuse, violence, and oppression that African Americans have suffered in our history.  I would never try to equalize the two experiences or say my civil rights experience is the same as the civil rights experiences of African Americans.

But a part of me is sad that these African American voters can't recognize the similarities.  It's about degrees of oppression.   In our own way, gays suffer abuse, violence, and oppression.  We remember a time when being gay was illegal.  We remember a time when police beat our brothers and sisters for merely being gay.  We remember those who came before us who fought violence and prejudice to give the next generation of gay people a voice.  Our community has the horrors of Matthew Shepherd.  Our community has the hatred of "christians" like Reverend Phelps.  Our community has political parties using our existance to drive wedges between voters.  And now we have state constitutional amendments denying our basic freedoms... our basic human rights.  I thought about all of these things as I stood in the lunchline today (I am a teacher) and a group of boys behind me called me a "fucking queer". Is this the same journey that African Americans have suffered in the last 200 years?  Absolutely not.  But is it similar enough that it should have given African American voters pause?  In my heart, I believe yes.

It makes me wonder what would have happened through history if civil rights issues had been put to a vote of "the masses' instead of handled through the courts. 

 

Brown vs. the Board of Education?  I expect we would have had state constitutional amendments banning educational integration.

 

Inter-racial marriage?  There would be none.

 

Affirmative action?  Qualified minority candidates would have found themselves on the outside looking in at the best colleges, the best jobs, the best opportunities. 

 

Would reconstruction have passed a vote of "the people"

 

For you see, the courts are meant to protect the rights of the minority... of those who are oppressed by the unfair views of the majority.  The courts are meant to guarantee freedoms, even when those freedoms are not popular in the eyes of "the masses".  I find it disheartening that those large numbers of African American voters didn't see the hypocrisy of voting against freedom for gay people on the same day they experienced complete and limitless freedom for the first time.  

 

These state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage will stand for a generation, and I will likely die before they are changed. Sadly, their existance will forever make me feel like less than a full American, less than equal to my fellow American brothers and sisters, in many ways less than human.  I can understand why people who have never suffered at the hands of injustice would have no problem voting to pass these constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage.  But in my heart of hearts, I will never come to understand how a group of people who have suffered for so long and fought so hard to belong and achieve full status in this nation could vote to pass along (in any small degree) the oppression they have felt to another group of people.  It makes my heart heavy.  It takes the wind out of my "sails" of joy for Barack Obama's well deserved victory.  It robs me of my optimism for this nation and for my fellow Americans. 

 

I am David Morgan, and I am less than I full citizen of the United States of America.  Sadly, that's not likely to change in my lifetime. 

It's Over: Why Bill Ayers Won't Save John McCain

Perpetually fretting Democrats will not want to accept it. The campaigns themselves can't afford to believe it. Many journalists know it but can't say it. And there will certainly be some twists and turns along the way. But take it to a well capitalized bank: Bill Ayers isn't going to save John McCain.  The race is over.

John McCain's candidacy is as much a casualty of Wall Street as Lehman or Merrill. Like those once vibrant institutions, McCain's collapse was stunning and quick. One minute you are a well-respected brand. The next you are yelling at the messengers of your demise as all around you the numbers start blinking red and stop adding up.

McCain's road was difficult to begin with: the President of his party has had record-low approval ratings for two years and the number of Americans who say the country is heading in the wrong direction is stratospheric. He also had the misfortune to be pitted against an exceptional candidate running an extremely well-executed campaign.

Still, before Wall Street's collapse Senator McCain was ahead. His approval ratings remained high, his VP pick had generated excitement and interest, and his campaign operatives were capable, on any given day, of winning news cycles and giving their opponents fits. And then the underpinnings of American capitalism begin to sink -- and with them sunk McCain.

An election dominated at its inception by the war in Iraq is now overwhelmingly focused on the economy. More than half of voters in polls say that the economy is their top concern and Senator Obama enjoys double digit leads among voters asked who can better fix our economic mess. Put simply, there is no way Senator McCain can win if he continues to trail Senator Obama by double digits on the top concern of more than half of voters.

State polls are beginning to reflect this. If the election were tomorrow, Obama would win all of the states John Kerry carried and add Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio and Florida. Barack Obama is campaigning in Indiana, which last went for a Democrat in 1964 and North Carolina, which has gone for a Democrat only once in thirty-four years. At the same time John McCain has pulled out of Michigan and Sarah Palin has been forced to visit Nebraska.

This dynamic is very unlikely to change. John McCain's goal in the first debate was to discredit Senator Obama as a credible Commander in Chief and elevate the issue of foreign policy and national security. He didn't come close. Absent a domestic terror attack the economy will remain the number one issue in the race, and there is little Senator McCain can do to make up his gap with Senator Obama on it. Oh, Senator McCain will try to make issues of Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko and Rev. Wright, and that might hurt Senator Obama around the margins -- but it will not prevent him from winning.  The economy is simply bigger than the rogues gallery that John McCain is conjuring up.

Why is this?  Why won't the swiftboat tactics work this year? 

Its easy to lose sight of it in the day to day coverage, but the collapse of Wall Street in the last weeks was a seminal event in the history of our nation and our politics. To put the crisis in perspective, Americans have lost a combined 1 trillion dollars in net worth in just the last four weeks alone.  Just as President Bush's failures in Iraq undermined his party's historic advantage on national security issues, the financial calamity has shown the ruinous implications of the Republican mania for deregulation and slavish devotion to totally unfettered markets.  

Republicans and Democrats have been arguing over the proper role of government for a century. In 1980 voters sided with Ronald Reagan and Republicans that government had become too big and intrusive.  Then the economy worked in the Republicans' favor.  Today the pendulum has swung in our direction.  Republican philosophies have been discredited by events. Voters understand this. This is a big election about big issues. McCain's smallball will not work. This race will not be decided by lipsticked pigs. And John McCain can not escape that reality. The only unknowns are the size of the margin and the breadth of the Democratic advantage in the next Congress.

 

Let's join up and do this TOGETHER!

A new Quinnipiac University/Wall Street Journal/WashingtonPost.com poll shows Obama leading McCain in four battleground states.

In Colorado, Obama is up five points (49%-44%); in Michigan, he leads by six (48%-42%); in Minnesota, the edge is 17 points (54%-37%); and in Wisconsin, it's 13 (52%-39%).

The methodology:
From June 17-24, Quinnipiac University surveyed:
-- 1,351 Colorado likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percent
-- 1,411 Michigan likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percent
-- 1,572 Minnesota likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percent
-- 1,537 Wisconsin likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percent

I was watching MSNBC this morning and a Democratic Analyst was saying the biggest mistake Hillary Clinton made was moving to NEW YORK to become a Senator instead of returning to her original home state of Illinois.  Clinton would have handed Obama his ass in the Primary there and Obama would never have been a Senator.

No Senator Obama, No Democratic Nominee for President Obama, No President Obama in 2008.

I dare say Clinton would have locked this game up MONTHS ago.

But a better option came along for the American People.

 

Wow isn't it amazing how choices like that come back to bite you in the ass?

In a surprising 4-3 vote... the California Supreme Court has ruled that domestic partnerships do not meet the constitutional requirement for a substitute for marriage rights for California's gay and lesbian couples.

As a progressive gay man, I am overwhelmed by this development.  I am worried that it will become a November issue and a scare tactic for the GOP... but it's a huge step to equality for all.

Hillary and her supporters must be so proud.  Ignorance and racism is your base!  Excellent!

Good Morning America, on the scene in West Virginia, introduced their viewers to Janis. She's not a particularly enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter, but for her, Hillary has got one thing on Barack Obama: she's not a Muslim. Of course, neither is Obama.

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KATE SNOW: Janis said she can't support Obama.

JANIS: He's Muslim and that has a lot to do with it. I just, you know, I just would rather have Hillary.

SNOW: Just for the record he constantly says he's a Christian -

JANIS: I know he does.

SNOW: You don't believe him?

JANIS: No.

Now, it's hardly newsworthy to learn that stupid people exist and they do, in fact, vote. I mean, we have this whole thing called "the Bush Administration" that more or less proves that. But it's a little astounding to hear Kate Snow, who, as a reporter, is ostensibly charged with informing the public, offer up the mealy mouthed, "Just for the record, he constantly says he's a Christian..." As Snow well knows, there's a reason that Obama constantly says he's a Christian: it is because he is a Christian. The correct response would have been, "I'm sorry, but you are mistaken." Or, failing that, at least show us a voter capable of making a passionate and authoritative case for Clinton.

Shocked by this behavior.  Notice no Obama supporters threatening.  Who is dividing the party?


At least two other party insiders wrote the Huffington Post expressing concern over the scope ("I've received emails like this for weeks but tonight it started in mass) and negativity of some of the Obama attacks, including one red-state Democrat:

"I spent my entire life in the two reddest states in the entire U.S. so please excuse me if I fail to discern the nuances of the arguments sent my way this evening in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign to intimidate the remaining unpledged delegates by threatening to leave the party and vote for a third Bush term if I and others like me don't vote for Sen. Clinton," wrote the exasperated superdelegate. "I have been uncommitted throughout this campaign because I wanted to see how the candidates performed in a variety of settings. I am proud of them both. But I am horrified by this effort to threaten votes for McCain if super delegates don't vote for Sen. Clinton. I have received hundreds of emails from both sides - but I can say without exception that I have not received a single email from an Obama supporter that threatened a vote for McCain if I didn't support Sen. Obama. You really ought to be ashamed."

Sad, really.

 

There's always been a racial dynamic underlying Clinton's claims of electability: The argument that working class white swing voters might not -- for whatever reason -- vote for Obama.

Her campaign has been stating it with striking bluntness in the last couple of days, though. Yesterday it was Geoff Garin, and today Clinton in an interview with USA Today:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Now, the press has talked about the race in these terms constantly, so I won't feign shock. But it's a bit strange to hear it so bluntly from the candidate's mouth, and probably not a great way to endear herself to African-American voter.

And it's also noteworthy that the blunt talk on appealing to whites surfaces the day after the last round of primaries in which there's a substantial number of black voters.

PolitickerMD reports that State Democratic Party Chairman Michael Cryor and Vice Chairwoman Lauren Dugas Glover will endorse Illinois Senator Barack Obama this afternoon.


That makes three for the day (not counting the three IL add ons!)

Hilary Clinton?  ZERO!

From Politico

"Matt Seyfang points out to me that, on Tuesday, we'll pass a milestone: There will be more superdelegates than pledged delegates left to fight over. There are currently 404 pledged delegates left to be allocated; that number will be down to 217 Wednesday. By comparison, there are roughly 275 unpledged delegates (automatic and add-ons) still up for grabs. That's a reminder that Obama has both a big lead and that Clinton's running out of ways to close it. It's also a reminder that Obama's strong hand isn't only, or even primarily, about the math. It's about the politics. "

11 pt lead for Barack Obama in NC.

I figured I should post this, since the TPM people can;t seem to post anything positive about Obama lately.

However, if Hillary Clinton wipes her ass... we get a headling...

"Clinton Shoots Rainbows Out Her Butt!"

Let's see with the new IL superdelegates, that makes 5 for Obama today... and ZERO for Clinton!  (1-1=0).

A good day for Barack Obama!

CHICAGO, IL -- Today, a Texas superdelegate backed Barack Obama, citing his record of standing up for working families and opposing trade deals that fail to protect American workers. The endorsement by Texas DNC Member John Patrick, who is also a 31 year member of the United Steelworkers (USW) as well as a Vice President of the Texas AFL/CIO, brings the total number of superdelegates to endorse Barack Obama to 249. Senator Obama is 283 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination.



John Patrick said, "Senator Barack Obama has spent a lifetime standing up for American workers, and he will be a crucial voice for us in the White House. Senator Obama chose a career as an organizer on the streets of Chicago, fighting for working families who lost their jobs, specifically those families in neighborhoods devastated by steel plant closings. He has consistently opposed unfair trade deals that fail to offer protection to American workers - like NAFTA. Senator Obama has a real plan to put money back in the pockets of working families by restoring the manufacturing base in America."

Obama picks up 3 more Illinois superdelegates: Daley, Currie and Stroger.

WASHINGTON--When the Democratic Party of Illinois meet next week to finish filling out the delegate slate, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will pick up three more superdelegates, according to Steve Brown, a spokesman for state party chair Michael Madigan, who is also the speaker of the Illinois House.

That's because the three appointments are all pledged to Obama: Mayor Daley --he shares strategist David Axelrod with Obama and brother Bill, the former Commerce Secetary is on the Obama team; Illinois House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago), a Hyde Parker who lives near the Obamas'; and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger.

A recent poll from Rasmussen suggests that the Democrats' problem in November might not be white voters, but black voters. From the internals of today's Rasmussen poll (sub. req.):

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows John McCain attracting 46% of the vote while Barack Obama also earns 46%. In a match-up with Hillary Clinton, it's McCain 47%, Clinton 45%. Among White voters, McCain leads Obama by twelve and Clinton by eleven. Among African-American voters, Obama dominates but Clinton attracts just 59% support.

While both Democrats hold equal numbers among white voters, the big discrepancy comes from black voters.

This would be CATASTROPHIC for downticket Democrats in November! Wowzer