If you thought you were depressed after reading Theda's post, wait until you read <A HREF=" Thomas">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/12/sticking-a-wrench-in-the_n_112303.html ">Thomas Edsall's</A> piece on huffpo. A very vocal group of clinton supporters are planning to take the fight to the convention floor, hoping that enought delegates will switch from Obama to clinton to give the nomination to Hillary.  They have taken out an ad in the Chicago Tribune and call themselves "The Denver Group".  They claim their fight it to keep the Democratic Party democratic. 

It has seemed clear to me for a while now that clinton donors are not coming through for Obama or even for the Party.  If they had been, the DNC wouldn't be so broke.  Greg Sargent has been uncharacteristically quiet about all things Hillary.  I don't know whether he was scared off the last time he tried to write about her, or what, but it seems to me the clinton donors in general and this particular group are newsworthy.  So how about it, Greg.  Anything to be worried about here?  
   

If you think Obama needs help in selling himself to conservatives here are some tips I received in an email today:

How to Market Obama to Your Republican Friends
by Press to Digitate
Sun May 18, 2008 at 08:12:19 AM PDT

   As a [now formerly] lifelong Republican, a [Goldwater] Conservative, and a former GOP activist, operative and professional campaign manager, now ardently supporting Sen. Barack Obama, I feel that I have the proper perspective from which to advise this audience on how to "sell" Obama to your Republican friends, relatives, and business associates.

There is a large reservoir of discontent among Republicans who are dissatisfied with John McCain as the GOP nominee.  As the recent 25% votes against him in the now uncontested primaries indicate, this dissention is far deeper and more persistent than it will be among Clinton Democrats, when the dust settles in August.  These votes, and those of other Republicans now disenchanted are ripe for the picking this fall - IF you know how to make the case to these people.

   Below the fold I'll try to give several viable talking points which should hold you in good stead with most any Republican you come across, talking politics with between now and the election...

• Press to Digitate's diary :: ::

   In general, Republican voters dont have the same priorities as Democrats. The reasons YOU support Sen. Obama are most likely NOT the factors on which your Republican associates will make their voting decisions. Dont assume that your 'hot button' issues are necessarily even important to them, nor belittle the priorities they bring to the voting booth.

   First, to most Republicans, the cornerstone Democratic issues of "Health Care", "Education", and "Jobs" just dont even register in the top five issues on which they will base their vote.  Arguing that Obama will best handle such subjects wont win their vote even if they believe you that he is best on these issues.  Moreover, Republicans will generally have less confidence in the government to deliver health care, and more confidence in private schools to deliver education than you will.   Dont argue these issues, arguments just harden attitudes; save your breath - just dont go there. You want their actual VOTE, not their nodding agreement on some arcane philosophical issue.

   Second, resist the urge to "Bush Bash".  While many (even Most) Republicans are no longer enamored with the President, that doesnt mean they are sympathetic with everyone wanting to dump on him, either.  They may feel President Bush to have been well intentioned, though blundering; they may have felt events got out of his control, they may even blame the Democratic Congress for his apparent failings.  Again, DONT GO THERE.  Its not a fight worth having.  You dont win VOTES by fighting with people, you win by leading them to the better alternative - from their vantage point, not yours.  George W. Bush is not on this ballot, and neither is his Vice President running to succeed him.  That "Bush Third Term" drivel just wont cut it in winning Republican votes.  Fortunately, with Obama as our candidate, we can make a better, more substantive case than that.

 

  Third, the only really serious, pervasively damaging charge the GOP will make against Obama is the tried-and-true tactic of painting him as a traditional "tax-and-spend-liberal-democrat, squishy-on-national-defense", in the mold of John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, etc. To most Republicans, that's the killer - if they believe it.  All other charges and acusations, no matter how scurrilous, are secondary and incidental to that one.  If they buy the 'tax-and-spend-liberal' label, they'll believe all the muddier garbage gossip; if they reject that charge as bogus, they'll most likely reject any other labels that may be pinned on him as 'not credible' either.  EVEN IF you, in your heart-of-hearts believe we need more taxes and spending, and you pray to your humanistic wiccan goddess every night (j/k) that Obama will bring these things, for the sake of the Polar Bears, keep those wishes to yourself!!!  To obtain an Obama VOTE, you are appealing to your Republican friend's existing sensibilities, rather than trying to change them.

  

   You may not agree with the following policy conclusions which led me to cross over for the first time in my life, and vote for Sen. Obama in Virginia's open primary, but THEY DID.  And these same issues will resonate with other Republicans in voting booths across the country this fall...

1.  TAXES.  As a member of the Illinois State Senate, Sen. Obama was cosponsor of a bill which ultimately passed, creating the largest tax cut in state history.   Since the start of his presidential campaign, he has consistently favored a broad-based middle class tax cut.  By contrast, Sen. McCain "voted against tax cuts before he voted for them", and has no real credibility on this issue among conservatives.  McCain was very critical of the Bush tax cuts, which most Republicans believe gave us years of prosperity - until very  recently.  Obama can thus be taken more seriously than McCain as a President who will cut taxes, rather than raise them.

2.  SPENDING.  Most Republicans' biggest gripe with their own party - by far - is its failure to control the bureaucracy and reign in runaway federal spending and deficits.  It is useful to mention that while the last five (5) Republican Presidents promised fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, all of them grew discretionary civilian spending by tremendous amounts, and ran up ever larger deficits.  Meanwhile, only Pres. Bill Clinton balanced the federal budget, and produced four years of surpluses, with the same forecast long into the indefinite future. A big problem with the federal budget is that almost nobody knows where all the money is going; its easy to add earmarks and pork barrel spending and special interest giveaways when the people back home cant tell the difference.   Sen. Barack Obama's major legislative accomplishment in the Senate, the The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 has been to bring transparency to federal spending. 

   Send your Republican friends to http://www.federalspending.gov which his legislation created, a veritable "Google of the Federal Budget", where anyone can research every dollar to see where their tax money is actually going.  The whole Federal Rathole is now online, for the first time ever, inviting scrutiny from whoever has the patience to slog through it all.     You dont have to be a CPA to realize that this does more in the long run to control wasteful federal spending than all the speeches Bush, Bush, Reagan, Ford, and Nixon ever gave on the subject, put together.

3. BIG GOVERNMENT.  In his North Carolina victory speech, among other things, Sen. Obama uttered the words "We dont need Big Government".  Whether you agree with that or not, remind your Republican friends that Pres. Bill Clinton's National Performance Review reduced the federal civilian workforce by 250,000 positions (ones they will consider, rightly or wrongly, to be useless tax-sucking bureaucrats).  This makes the last Democratic administration the only presidency since Eisenhower's to leave office with a smaller federal workforce that he started with - again, Bush, Bush, Reagan, Ford, and Nixon notwithstanding.  But, the real stones Obama brings to the table on this issue are his formative years on the south side of Chicago, doing meaningful community social work through voluntary, faith-based, non-governmental community organizations, rather than government bureaucracies.  Yes, We CAN - rehabilitate the homeless, educate the illiterate, provide day care for single moms, dry out alcoholics, and clean junkies off the dope without buidling perpetual bureaucracies - Obama himself has proven that, through social entrepreneurship. By contrast, John McCain has never drawn a day's pay that didnt come from the public trough, courtesy of your tax dollars (getting fabulously rich by marrying an heiress or taking money under the table from special interests he did favors for doesnt count as 'earning money in the productive sector').

4.  PERSONAL LIBERTY.  Barry Goldwater must be rolling over in his grave over what debasements of the U.S. Constitution the Bush Administration has gotten itself into, and which the man who took his seat in the U.S. Senate, John McCain now ardently defends.  Warrantless domestic wiretapping, warrantless searches and seizures, arresting U.S. citizens without probable cause, holding them without trial, etc., etc....No REAL conservative believes these things are legitimate perrogatives of the federal government. There are innumerable horror stories you can research and recount of how the GOP has sat idly by while our cherished Constitutional protections have been ignored, abrogated, and turned into a joke. The last thing real conservatives want is the Orwellian Police State we're presently heading for.  Grassroots Republicans dont necessarily trust the feds any more than you do.  Thats a case you can make - and make stick - with them.

5.  NATIONAL SECURITY.  To the rejoinder, "yes, but its worked, we havent been attacked since 9/11", you must add:  "BUT, we havent foreclosed the threat by taking out al Queada, either".  The National Security argument is like the Tax-and-Spend one, it doesnt matter where you stand on "bombing al Queada back to the stone age" - the fact remains that your Republican friends will vote for the candidate they perceive to be most in tune with that idea, period.  McCain vocally disagrees with the successful CIA program to take out al Queada leadership when located in northwest Pakistan, without alerting the local tribal authorities and Pakistani Intelligence, who have always warned off our targets in the past.  Sen. Obama, by contrast, opposes giving al Queada sanctuary in Pakistan, and ardently supports this initiative.  When McCain attacked Obama as niave for "wanting to bomb an ally", the very next day the CIA took out the #3 leader in al Queada with just such a raid, with a missile fired from a Predator drone.  Coddling Pakistan's corrupt dictator for these eight years hasnt made us safer, and John McCain's simplistic continuation of this weak policy is just being Soft on Terrorism, no way around it. Also, its worth noting that whatever other implications it may have for John McCain's Character, Psyche, or Mental Makeup, having a plane shot out from under you and spending six years behind bars does not automatically qualify anyone as a "national security expert"; that notion is just ludicrous on the face of it.

6.  OPPORTUNITY.  While John McCain's four-star Admiral father ensured him a prized appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, his performance - 894th out of 899 cadets in his class - does not attest to diligent effort, whereas Barack Obama (from a broken home, on food stamps) won competitive academic scholarships to Harvard, which he proved himself worthy of by graduating Magna Cum Laude ("With Highest Honors").  Its been a long time since any politicians of either party could talk convincingly about "The American Dream", but Barack Obama can, because he lived it.  Without handouts, family patronage, or inheritence, he pulled himself up by his bootstraps from the Chicago ghetto through his own hard work, enterprise, and initiative to become President of the Harvard Law Review, one of the most prestigious scholarly legal journals in the country.  Which President is more likely to make a difference in the lives of people, and motivate them with initiative to best achieve their individual God-given potential?

   Those are the issues that real, hard-core Republicans think about when they vote for a president.  Talk TO them - not past them with vague, touchy-feely bleeding heart nonsense they wont understand or agree with - and you might very likely ring up another VOTE for Barack Obama this fall.  Getting your friends VOTE is all that matters, not winning their hearts to any grander philosophical cause; that just wont happen, so forget it.  Make common cause between your GOP acquaintences and Sen. Obama, even if its on points you, yourself, disagree with. THAT'S HOW YOU WILL WIN THIS ELECTION FOR OBAMA.

  Once you wash that "tax-and-spend liberal, squishy-on-national-security" label away, none of the other, lesser acusations the Karl Roves and Rush Limbaughs of this world can make against Obama will stick, either.  All other things thus being equal, the younger, more intelligent, more dynamic, less "Washington Establishment", less 'tainted-by-special-interest-money' candidate should prevail.  Even among Republicans...

Huffpo linked to this Friday article in the NY Times that says the government has put a freeze on any new solar energy projects because environmental studies are needed.  I tend to doubt...to hell with that...I disbelieve any and everything that comes out of this administration until I'm proven wrong and I'm wondering if this is the payback for ANWR, off-shore drilling, etc.  Or is there some pressing need for studies.  If so, what might be the damage to the environment from these projects?

Thanks for your input. 

I heard an interview with Jeff Sharlet on the Diane Rehn show yesterday.  Sharlet is the author of a new book called The Family: the secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power.  The Family aka The Fellowship aka many other names is composed of cells of powerful unorthodox Christian fundamentalists. 

The organization began in the 1930s or 1940s. It's founder received a revelation from God telling him that the Christians had been preaching the wrong message for 2000 years.  God told him that He doesn't actually care about the poor and weak and ill.  His concerns are with the powerful.  The powerful people are the receivers of of His beneficence and the powers will then award what they want to the poor, the weak and the ill. It's a trickle down effect...sound familiar?

The Congressional prayer breakfasts we've all heard about are part of The Family.  The only name Sharlet named on the program that I recognized was Senator Brownback of Kansas. 

The Silk Road project was mentioned. This is/was a movement to make friends with the dictators of the "stans", the states of the old Silk Road and the object was to either convert make sure the power Christians and American companies were welcome there.  It's not directly related to either of the parties, but from what Sharlet said it has influenced politics, especially conservative politics it seems to me.  There are members from both Parties though, I believe, and it sounds as if Dobson might be one of them.

I have requested the book from my library, but haven't received it yet.  I'm eager to learn more about this group. It's very very scary, although I'm not sure it's any scarier than the republican party has been for the last 20 years.

Maureen Dowd rakes Rove over the coals today for his snide remarks about Obama and the country club.  This is the Modo I love and have seen so little of recently.

Obama is the outsider who never really knew his dad and who grew up in modest circumstances, the kid who had to work hard to charm whites and build a life with blacks and step up to the smarty-pants set.

He might be smoking, but it would be at a cafe, hunched over a New York Times, an Atlantic magazine, his MacBook and some organic fruit-flavored tea, listening to Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” on his iPod.

Both of my parents were Kansas Republicans.  I have a vague recollection of some low-level animosity toward FDR and I knew at the time that Dewey was the candidate for whom my parents had voted, but, in genereal, politics and polemics of any knind were not part of my middle-class, middle-America life growing up. It was a typical *American*, small-town, church on Sunday, Jack Benny on the radio, ice cream socials in the summer, Saturday night movies in the main street theater or the drive-in existence.

So it was with some consternation and trepidation that I found myself, my two young children and my (now ex) husband headed for a post overseas.  To illustrate how long ago this was, we flew onthe long-defunct Braniff International Airways.  The coach cabin had four wide seats across, two on each side, and enough leg room that a 6'6" man was comfortable throughout the long flight.  The service and meals were five star (or nearly so it seemed to me at the time).  My year-old son took his steps inthe aisle which was much broader than airlinger aisles are today.

As the plane took off for points known geographically, but unknown in any other sense to me, I thought literally about the "amber waves of grain" we were passing over and wondered what I had gotten myself into.  The experience of living abroad was extraordinary, of course.  I loved it and quite naturally it broadened my worldview considerably.  In fact, I was not entirely thrilled with the idea of returning to the States after five years away. 

I long ago became an urban Democrat and I delight in finding people who like to discuss politics.  While I have moved in an entirely different direction, I still remember how it felt to be a *real (raised as a Republican) American*. My life was filled with pride of country and patriotism. You're thinking "how naive" probably and you would be right.  But you have to remember those were the days before cable television, and before the Kennedy-Nixon televised debate, and it was even before the Huntley Brinkley Nightly News.  Compared to today we were isolated.

Which brings me finally to an article by Mark Schmitt in The American Prospect: Can Identity Politics Save the Right?  According to Schmitt

[t]raditionally, the phrase "identity politics" has referred to the Democratic coalition's caucuses, interest groups and competitive claims of wrongs to be righted and rights to be granted. Identity politics on the left, according to this very conventional wisdom, opened the door to an alternative politics of national identity on the right.

Schmitt notes elsewhere that neocon pundit David Frum considers these traditional Democratic Party constituencies - what Frum calls the pluribus in e pluribus unum - to be parasites. Because the Republican Party is bankrupt of ideas he adds

[t]hat this year the Republican argument is reduced to its barest essence: Americans versus "pluribus", unprotected by the politeness of issues or safer symbolism,

which is the origin of McCain's slogan: The American President Americans Are Waiting For.

Schmitt concludes

if it works, it will be in part because we--by which I mean the media and many Democrats believe it will.  We are easily spooked by the confident swagger of the Republicans, who not so long ago were plotting permanent world domination.

So will it work?  Will we continue to be spooked by possible repercussions if we stand firm on principle?  Will Obama's rapid fire and firm rebuttals to GOP attacks keep them at bay?  Will the Republicans succeed in painting themselves as the only *real Americans*?  Will enough people fall for this shallow ploy? As a former *real American* I have hope that it won't work, but I'm not convinced we have enough self confidence yet to stop them.

Will someone please tell me shat I am doing wrong?  I just posted a rather long blog and only the first paragraph appears.  What am I doing wrong?

Both of my  parents were Kansas Republicans. I have a vague recollection of some low-level animosity toward FDR and I knew at the time that Dewey was the candidate for whom my parents voted ,  but, in general, politics and polemics of any kind were  not  part of my middle-class, middle-America life growing up. It was a typical *American*, small-town, church on Sunday, Jack Benny on the radio, ice cream socials in the summer, Saturday night movies in the main street theater, or the drive-in existence.     

My first attempt didn't post at all and the second one was cut short.  Here comes #3

Could it be that Barack Obama really isn't "Black" enough for a big section of the Black voters in this country after all is said and done? Judging from Wright's behavior in recent days, and from reading comments on different blogs I have to conclude this is probably the case. I also read on HuffPo  that the Black woman (a minister) who recruited Wright for the National Press Club is a big Hillary supporter – sorry I couldn’t find the link when I went back to look for it.

that Barack Obama really isn't "Black" enough for a big section of the Black voters in this country after all is said and done? Judging from Wright's behavior in recent days, and from reading comments on different blogs I have to conclude this is probably the case. I also read on HuffPo  that the woman who got Wright for the National Press Club is a big Hillary supporter – sorry I couldn’t find the link when I went back to look for it.

An Obama fan has set up a web site with the intention of raising $1,000,000 for Obama in one minute next Monday starting at 1 p.m. (EST I assume)
 
Here is the web site where you can sign up: http://anobamaminute.com/  and this is a link to the NYTimes article where I read about the project:
 
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/million-dollar-minute/index.html?nl=pol&emc=pola1