A few weeks back a ran across a brilliant article in the Atlantic monthly about Obama, the culture wars and how you end them. Check it out. It is by the brilliant and often snarky Andrew Sullivan I highly recommend to anyone who wants to understand how our politics got so divisive.

Also I’d like to stop praise John Edwards and offer my sympathies to all of his supporters. I have liked John since the first time I saw him on Hardball in 2003 and the first vote I ever cast was for him in the last California primary. As someone who grew up in the “other America” I believe passionately in his call to combat poverty and strengthen the middle-class. I support Obama because I believe he is uniquely equipped to heal the country and persuade Americans to believe in a progressive vision, but I very much hope to see every part of Edward’s fight to end poverty enacted. If like me you are someone who was torn between Edwards and Obama, I hope you will come and help us fight for change.

Lastly since it is looking more and more like McCain is going to be the republican nominee I thought I’d suggest how we beat him. You have to present a absolute contrast with him, make it night and day (normally I’d use the phrase black and white but I figured people might read too much into it). You say he’s supported the war from day one and we’ve opposed it from day one. You say he’s the past and we’re the future. You say he’s four more years of George Bush foreign policy, Washington establishment, and struggling middle class families and were change. You need some one young and inspiring, who can compete with him among independents and moderates.

It just so happens Obama is uniquely suited to compete with McCain. For better or worse he is “change” and Hillary is “experience.” The problem is that is impossible to beat McCain in an experience argument. McCain is an honest to god war hero, has been in the Senate since I was born and has sponsored lord know how many McCain-Some Democrat bills. If Hillary tries to say how she has “35 years of experience” or is “tested and ready”all McCain has to do is talk about how 35 years ago he was being tested in the Hanoi Hilton. Likewise we need someone who can run even with him among independents and Hillary has a net negative approval rating among independents. I like Hillary, I greatly miss the days of Bill’s presidency, but the simple fact of the matter is she is ill equipped to beat McCain and if she is elected the country would be so polarized it would be impossible to govern. Obama is how we win in November and pass a progressive agenda.

P.S. For those fellow West Wing addicts out there, Dule Hill (aka Charlie) has endorsed Obama and is currently stumping for us in Minnesota.

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I find incredibly fitting that forty years later before another critical California primary the last of the brothers Ted Kennedy and JFK’s daughter Caroline would endorse Obama. If you haven’t yet had the chance to watch Caroline Kennedy’s ad please do so, it should make any democrat proud.

And this time, it is not just a dream. This hope is real, young are turning out and voting in numbers never before seen. In Iowa voters 29 and under made up 22% of caucus goers the same percentage as those over 65 and 4 points higher than those 30-44. Young people were among the most likely to vote. So far as I know this has never happened before in any election at any level anywhere in my lifetime.

It’s not just young people either, Independents and more than a few moderate republicans are turning out in droves and changing their registration so they can support Obama. That is a winning recipe for November and for the chance to actually govern. Consistently I hear from independents, greens, republicans, and people who have never voted that Barack Obama is the one politician they like or the one democrat they could support.

Recently I was in Reno canvassing for the Nevada caucuses. I was in charge of making sure people in a 6 block by 6 block neighborhood went and spent 2 hours in a local library for Obama. I went and knocked on doors in the snow, talked to people in the street and left door hangers in the dark. There were 316 registered democrats in the precinct and they expected 40 to show up. 181 people caucuses there, more than half of them under 25. For many of them it was the first time the voted in their lives and a quarter were independents and republicans who changed their registration to caucus for Obama. The caucuses started 20 minutes late because so many of them (more than half) needed to register.

This is how we win in November, Obama has shown an incredible ability to win among voters and in areas democrats do not normally compete in. He can build up the party and the country instead of tearing down the other side. He uniquely understands this moment in America and the lessons of the our past. I hope all of you will join me in voting for him this Tuesday

Yesterday I wrote about a shift among democrats towards Obama on Electability. However, this is not merely a perception I believe Obama is in fact the most electable. This is because he has a unique ability not seen in my lifetime to win over independents and cross over republicans and to turn out new voters and young people. I am certain that he can expand and strengthen the democratic party in a way not seen since JFK.

Every two years I hear people talk about how young voters are going to turn out. When I first came to Berkeley I worked on the Dean campaign and then the Kerry campaign, both touted their strength among young people. We had meetups and house parties, and “vote or die”. Yet at the end of the day young people choose death and turn out was only high only by comparison to previous elections.

It’s not that young people never turn out; President Kennedy created an entire generation of dedicated new democrats committed to progressive ideals and public service. He inspired a young man named John Kerry to serve his country in Vietnam and then fight to end his generation’s unjust war. There’s another famous story about a brief handshake with Kennedy inspired the young William Jefferson Clinton to a lifetime of public service. Many of us here remember fondly the Clinton years of our childhood, his 92′ race was the last time young voters turned out in respectable numbers. I still remember watching the 92′ debates with my parents; I was only 6 but even then I was inspired.

The best analogy I think though is not John Kennedy but his brother Robert. Forty years ago he ran an improbable and inspirational bid for the presidency to end an unjust war, heal a divided nation, provide universal health-care, protect the environment and fight for social justice. He brought together a broad coalition of Americans of all incomes, races, and ideologies who believed the country and our politics needed a fundamental change. First and foremost though, it was a campaign of young people, the volunteered and the voted for him in numbers never before seen and the propelled him to a shocking win in the critical California primary and set him on track to become president. If any of the sounds familiar, no it is not a coincidence. Like so many other of my heroes RFK’s promise was ended by a gunman but I have always dreamed about what could have been had he lived and wished for the chance to see another like him in my lifetime. Barack Obama is that chance.

Hello Cal Dems, Eric here (or if you prefer President Pro Tempore). I decided it’s about time I started posting before I graduate. I was just thumbing through the SC exit polls and I discovered something incredible, for the first time Obama won convincingly on electability and his supporters almost universally believed he was the most electable.

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…On the internet. And the reason why is fascinating. It’s not that we have lower population density - it’s ineffective/nonexistent regulation. Apparently, markets (in at least some situations) actually perform markedly better when constrained by judicious regulation.

Something that might be worth thinking about in some other areas as well, perhaps.

In doing research for my Linguistics paper on the metaphors used to talk about blogs (wee!), I came across this really interesting article that none other than Berkeley’s own Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the Kos of Daily Kos, wrote for The American Prospect about a year and a half ago. Kos reflects on the time he spent in the army right after high school, and why he switched from being a presinct-captain Republican to a card-carrying Democrat. It struck me as incredibly poignant, especially with an election nearing, as people are evaluating their own beliefs in choosing a candidate to vote for. It’s a short article, so you should definitely check it out!

P.S. How meta is it that in the midst of writing a paper about blogs, I should be compelled to post one of my own? Oh, academia.

So, my very favoritest Op-Ed writer has put a piece up on his blog on the tragically misunderstood racial legacy of the Gipper (so known for his “constant and exuberant gipping”, according to a reputable source). And I have to say, I think he’s really on to something. After all, not a few other prominent Republicans have made similar statements, even into the present day. And if these weren’t just innocent mistakes, what else are we to believe? That for decades one of the two dominant political parties in America has founded its success in large part on racist appeals of remarkable toxicity? Why, David Broder would get the vapors at the mere suggestion of it. No, that’s clearly ridiculous.

…Right?

That’s something of a novel concept these days, isn’t it? By, for, and of the people. Kinda stands in contrast to the system we’ve got now, which seems to be government by the lobbyists, for the corporate special interests backing them, and of an entrenched Washington elite that recent history has shown to be catastrophically arrogant and out-of-touch. And the people? Who needs ‘em?

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Posted on www.truthdig.com

Posted on Oct 7, 2007

By Will Durst

Last week, a clandestine cadre of controlling conservative Christian captains (bunch of right-wing religious nut jobs is what I’m getting at) threatened to run from the GOP like ducks from an alligator the size of a Buick if any infidel they don’t anoint is nominated for president. And yes, a specific former New York City mayor was mentioned. Funny you should ask.

At a meeting in Salt Lake City (where else—you thought Vegas maybe?) Heaven’s Soldiers collectively decided they would rather support a burned-beyond-recognition, duckbill platypus with wire-coat-hanger hands than a certain Mr. Rudolph Giuliani. Apparently the Mayor of 9/11 is not the answer to their prayers.

Oh, they have their reasons. Giuliani’s serial inclination to appear at fundraisers in drag, resulting in his being photographed wearing a dress more often than Hillary Clinton, could be one. His brazen courting of the pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control wing of the Republican Party might be another. The fact that the Rudy clan, including both ex-wives (two too many), are campaigning for other people doesn’t help much either. A bit of a sticky wicket that: trying to swing Independents with your Family Value bona fides when your own family hates you. With megaphones. more »

Paul Krugman put a bee ee ay yootiful column up a few days ago about how the Bush Administration is busily resurrecting practices that were discarded as ineffectual and dangerous all the way back in Medieval Europe (the tax farming reference is explained here, by the way). What’s remarkable about this isn’t so much the knuckleheaded incompetence with which these things are executed or the sheer grasping avarice motivating them - these things are simply expected from the Bushies at this point. Rather, what’s really interesting here is what this reveals about their ultimate goals and motives, and by extension those of the broader conservative movement that nurtured them, brought them to power, and enabled (enables, rather) their every excess not merely willingly, but with what appears to be positive glee.

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