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Op-Ed Columnist - Running While Black - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com
Tags: reputation, obama, campaign on 2008-08-03 -All Annotations (0) -About
in list: Race and culture
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Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”
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Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.
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Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black.
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Peter Beinart - Obama at the Helm - washingtonpost.com
Tags: obama, campaign, leadership on 2008-04-09 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About
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Luckily, Obama doesn't have to rely on his legislative résumé to prove he's capable of running the government. He can point to something more germane: the way he's run his campaign.
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Presidents tend to govern the way they campaigned. Jimmy Carter ran as a moralistic outsider in 1976, and he governed that way as well, refusing to compromise with a Washington establishment that he distrusted (and that distrusted him). Ronald Reagan's campaign looked harsh on paper but warm and fuzzy on TV, as did his presidency. The 1992 Clinton campaign was like the Clinton administration: brilliant and chaotic, with a penchant for near-death experiences. And the 2000 Bush campaign presaged the Bush presidency: disciplined, hierarchical, loyal and ruthless.
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Obama's, by contrast, has been an organizational wonder, the political equivalent of crossing a Lamborghini with a Hummer. From the beginning, the Obama campaign has run circles around its foes on the Internet, using MySpace, Facebook and other Web tools to develop a virtual army of more than 1 million donors. The result has been fundraising numbers that have left opponents slack-jawed (last month Obama raised $40 million, compared with Clinton's $20 million).
But the Web is the political equivalent of gunpowder: It can mow down your opponents, but it can also blow up in your face. In 2004, Howard Dean's campaign also raised vast sums online, but it spent the money just as fast. By embracing the anarchic ethos of the liberal blogosphere, Dean generated enormous excitement, but he couldn't harness it. Within his decentralized, bottom-up campaign, a thousand flowers bloomed, but not at the right time and in the right place. "You cannot manage an insurgency," said Dean's Web guru, Joe Trippi. "You just have to ride it."
The Obama campaign has proved that adage wrong. It has married Web energy with professional control. It has used the Web masterfully but, unlike Dean in 2004, sees it as a tool, not a philosophy of life. -
It is this remarkable hybrid campaign, far more than Obama's thin legislative résumé, that should reassure voters that he can run the government. As president, he'll need to keep his supporters mobilized: It will take a grass-roots movement, breathing down Congress's neck, to pass universal health care. But in dealing with those very supporters, he'll also have to be ruthless so as not to get caught up in the kind of side skirmishes, such as gays in the military, that weakened Bill Clinton early on. Obama's experience whipping up support on MySpace while simultaneously tamping it down is exactly the kind he'll need in the Oval Office.
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But if Obama can come across as idealistic without being moralistic, if he can keep his supporters' spirits high and their expectations in check, if he can fuse exuberance and discipline, he might just run the government pretty well. That won't be easy, but then, neither is running for president. Just ask Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
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Obama Race Speech: Read The Full Text - Politics on The Huffington Post
Tags: campaign, divisive, hope, obama, presidental, race, speech on 2008-03-23 and saved by6 people -All Annotations (0) -About
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I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
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The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
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On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
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I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed
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They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
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wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity
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But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
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And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
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I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
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Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
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But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality
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a part of our union that we have yet to perfect.
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reality requires a reminder
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This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up.
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Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
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The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
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Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
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so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.
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racial stalemate
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Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
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Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
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The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation.
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For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
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And nothing will change
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That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time."
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This time
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The Machinery of Hope : Rolling Stone
Tags: campaign, marketing, networking, obama, organizier, politics, social on 2008-03-23 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About
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The meeting in San Marcos wasn't advertised in any traditional
sense. Instead, the campaign posted the event on my.barackobama.com
— its social-networking site affectionately known as "MyBo"
— and e-mailed local residents who had donated to the
campaign or surrendered their addresses as the price of admission
to an Obama rally. And the volunteers who showed up won't be
micromanaged by Ukman or anyone else from the campaign. They'll be
able to call their own shots, from organizing local rallies to
recruiting and training a crew of fellow Obama supporters to man
their precincts on election day. -
This scene in the rec center is being repeated in neighborhood
coffee shops, high school cafeterias and public libraries across
Texas. Over the course of the three-day weekend, the Obama campaign
trained 4,000 precinct captains in more than twenty communities,
from El Paso to Corpus Christi. This is the same grass-roots effort
that has trounced the Clinton campaign — a classic top-down
operation run by high-paid consultants — in ten straight
contests by an average of more than thirty points. It has evolved
into the mother of all get-out-the-vote campaigns, one that has
enabled Obama to collect more votes in Virginia and Wisconsin than
all of the GOP candidates combined. -
The Obama campaign has actually worked to
tamp down media coverage of its technological advances in
organizing, avoiding anything that would cast the candidate as "the
next Howard Dean." In Democratic political circles, Dean's
short-lived campaign still carries heavy baggage: Howard Dean
was the Internet. Howard Dean lost. -
"They've been guarded," says Peter Leyden, director of the New
Politics Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank that promotes
technology in politics. "It's been beautiful to watch them blending
these new tools into the old-fashioned shoe-leather, door-knocking
politics. But they don't talk about it. People like myself have to
piece it together from its outer effects." -
According to David Axelrod, the campaign's chief strategist, the
bottom-up ethos of the campaign comes straight from the top. "When
we started this race, Barack told us that he wanted the campaign to
be a vehicle for involving people and giving them a stake in the
kind of organizing he believed in," Axelrod says. "He is still the
same guy who came to Chicago as a community organizer twenty-three
years ago. The idea that we can organize together and improve our
country — I mean, he really believes that." -
Steve Hildebrand, a folksy veteran of South Dakota politics
regarded as one of the top field strategists in the game. "We
wanted to make sure we learned from Howard Dean's campaign,"
Hildebrand says. The most valuable lesson? "We didn't make the
assumption that people signing up on our Web site meant that they
were going to help the candidate or even vote for him. From the
beginning, we had an initiative to take our online force
offline." -
In February and March of 2007, just after Obama
announced his candidacy, the campaign set up huge rallies in cities
from Los Angeles to Austin to Cleveland. In return for a ticket,
supporters were asked only to provide their e-mail, zip code and
telephone number — a practice that continues at every Obama
megarally, where it has become routine for him to draw crowds in
excess of 20,000. -
"Events are not just an opportunity for us to put Barack in
front of voters," says Hildebrand. "It's a chance for voters to be
in a captive environment where we ask them to sign up and do more
for Barack — to make phone calls, canvas, get out the vote.
We don't want people to just come to an event — we want them
to become part of this movement."
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Shades of Gray: Perspectives on Campaing Ethics
Even considering the two roles outlined as "self interest" and "civiv responsibility" the authors establish a set of "test" for ethical behavior. They assume the postition them as a "reasonable" person not a technican of philosophy.
Tags: campaign, gray, levy, politican, rivers, shades on 2008-03-23 -All Annotations (0) -About
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To many, the term campaign ethics is an oxymoron. Questionable campaign conduct occurs at many levels, from national presidential elections to local delegate contests. Campaign ethics goes beyond mere ethical dilemmas, or trying to decide whether or not a particular act is above board.The chapters in this volume examine the broad questions of ethics in campaigns from the perspective of those actors that play critical roles in them, as well as the scholars who study them.
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