Palin is Irrelevant

I will make this prediction right now, Tuesday night, September 30th. Most Democrats, including the vast majority of the media, will find Sarah Palin’s performance in Thursday night’s debate substandard or further demonstration that she is woefully unqualified to be vice-president and a hair’s breath away from the presidency. And I also have this revelation. All McCain spokespeople, including Right Wing pundits and Fox News, will find her performance satisfactory and proof that she is adequately prepared.

So why am I still so anxious to see this debate? I can’t help myself. Sarah Palin is so damned entertaining. Just like George W. Bush and former Vice-President Dan Quayle, they just say the darndest things. I just have to see what all this supposed preparation does to a person so dreadfully unprepared.

But in the end, whatever she says, however she performs, and even if she puts on a tutu and dances around the stage in front of Senator Biden, what she does has absolutely no bearing on this presidential race, and I sincerely doubt that any viewer will actually change his or her mind based on what they see. If you loved her, you still will, maybe more. If you despised her, my guess is that you still will, almost certainly more.

But watch we will. Let’s just not lose sight of the one thing that is relevant about Sarah Palin. She was John McCain’s pick as his vice-presidential running mate. He has flat out stated that she is the most qualified person in this country to be vice-president and that she is an expert on energy issues. I want us all to keep that in mind as we remind ourselves of what has transpired this past month and what we see on Thursday night.

It will be entertaining if nothing else. I can’t wait!

McCain Retools for Next Debate

This morning at the McCain office in Northern Virginia, the brain trust of the McCain campaign hunkered down for a post-debate strategy meeting, and I happened to get a copy of the discussion transcript. It turns out that McCain feels that he was too respectful and deferential to Obama last night and is feeling that he needs to make it even more clear how much he despises Obama and wants the viewers to recognize that Obama does not have enough experience or judgment to lead this country .

There are plans for call Barack “Sonny” a couple of times and use the term “Young Man” several times, as well. There was talk about invoking Senator Bentsen’s line against Dan Quayle that he knew Jack Kennedy and that Quayle’s no Jack Kennedy the first time Obama used the name Roosevelt, saying, “Senator, I knew Teddy Roosevelt, I worked with Teddy, and you’re no Teddy Roosevelt,” but in the end, it was felt that being a name dropper would not be too appealing.

What was decided is that every time Barack mentioned a region of the world, McCain would say, “Been there. Done that” or would say, “I was there in 1987, 1992, 1999 and 2004” just to make absolutely certain that the whole world knows that McCain has the experience it takes to be president. The McCain debate team has also contacted the Federal Debate Commission to request that McCain’s podium for the next debate be pointed another several inches away from the Obama podium, thus ensuring that McCain doesn’t look over at Obama accidentally or inadvertently.

For those of you who haven’t caught on by now, the first three paragraphs of this blog were tongue in cheek. But sadly, it’s not that hard to imagine any of it being true. McCain’s behavior during last night’s debate was deplorable. I had originally hoped that Barack would nail him every chance he got, but after watching the debate and some of the commentary, I realize now that there is a strategy to handle McCain with a little more gentility and for Obama to make points without belittling McCain at the same time. I did wear a hole in the carpet where I paced back and forth last night for close to an hour and a half.

The strongest message that Barack had last night is that this country needs to reestablish its stature in the world and that we cannot accomplish its objectives while alienating the rest of the world. He also said that our continued involvement with Iraq is bogging us down with the rest of the world, and on this point, I agree wholeheartedly. It is so obvious that McCain has complete disdain for Barack, and I feel that this point wasn’t lost on anyone who witnessed last night’s debate. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if Barack wouldn’t start almost every statement with first agreeing with McCain’s point, but Barack is a true statesman and a gracious debater, and it is not within his nature to bash just for the sake of beating someone up.

So I have once again been reminded that Obama and his talented team know what they’re doing. McCain showed in this debate and in the weeks leading up to it what kind of president he’d be. Impetuous, angry, inconsistent and full of contempt, and in his first major decision as a presidential candidate, picked an unqualified and disingenuous candidate whom he had hardly met, only worried about changing the subject and not thinking about the ramifications of his choice once the excitement died down. McCain also pretended to suspend his campaign and attempt to postpone the debate, while Obama looked presidential in his immediate responses to McCain’s histrionics leading up to the debate, and demonstrated tremendous knowledge and poise by answering questions knowledgably and suggesting stark differences between himself and his opponent.

One thing we know for sure, that it remains a bumpy road to the White House for Barack Obama. He is negotiating this road skillfully and artfully, and John McCain is a much more formidable candidate than I ever thought he’d be. But in his zeal to present himself as the better candidate for president and continue to attack Obama as an inexperienced young man who lacks proper judgment and character, he spews out misinformation, inaccurate statistics and glowing representations of his own record which turn out mostly to be exaggeration or what he’d love uninformed people to believe.

Obama has a real opportunity to point out who he is and what he represents over the next several weeks, including two more debates, and as has been true for months now, Barack’s success or failure is his to control. McCain has now established who he is, what he’s going to say and how he campaigns, and his is an old tired message with the exact same tactics that have been the mainstay of the Bush-Cheney regime. It is now the time for Obama to clearly and distinctly point out what he will mean to this country as its president, and he must not let up for one moment letting voters recognize that he actually is the most qualified presidential candidate and does have the judgment to lead this country into the next four years and beyond.

Taking a Page from the Movies

I can’t get the movie A Few Good Men out of my mind. There are just too many similarities to tonight’s debate. I see Barack as the Tom Cruise character, someone who fights for what’s right, and even though the character played by Jack Nicholson doesn’t exactly fit with John McCain, I do see that in my mind in this debate and campaign, he is not right on the issues and that Barack must do a superb job making his case.

Tom Cruise plays an attorney who knows that Jack Nicholson’s character, a cocky military leader who has broken the law, is going to walk away from a trial unless Cruise, an upstart attorney with brash talent, but quite a bit of inexperience, can prove that he broke the law. Another attorney, played brilliantly by Demi Moore, rushes to the courtroom right before the final day of the trial to remind Cruise’s character that if he can’t nail Nicholson’s character, don’t try, because a wounded but free man who isn’t literally destroyed will spend the rest of this career trying to ruin Tom Cruise’s character.

I realize this is confusing, but the parallel is clear to me, at least. If Barack is going to beat around the bush (pardon the pun) and simply make vague references to McCain’s lack of effectiveness, wishy-washy behavior and inconsistent messaging, then he might as well not waste his time. In blunt terms, he needs to go for the jugular. Like Cruise, he needs to take every opening to respectfully, but with conviction point out in just a few words how absolutely destructive it will be for a John McCain to be president of this country and that it is just another Bush term.

This past week, John McCain has been all over the map, and I don’t mean geographically. He was originally against the bailout of AIG, then for it. He was originally for the proposed bailout plan, but against it. He announced that he would suspend his campaign, but it was simply a charade. His offices were all kept open and his ads continued running on TV. He lied to Letterman about needing to get back to DC immediately and received way more than a tongue lashing from him, and when he did get back to Washington, he said next to nothing and seemed to negatively affect what looked like the framework of a deal.

In short, instead of Barack saying that McCain didn’t have much to contribute to the delicate negotiations in Congress, he should say that McCain pulled a publicity stunt that backfired and he is left with egg on his face. Barack should say that McCain has told so many lies that even Fox News can’t support his antics any longer, and that instead of suspending his campaign, he was in suspended animation, because his behavior made him look and act like a cartoon character, completely out of control. Okay. Maybe that one’s a stretch, but you get where I’m going with this.

When questions start about Iraq and McCain says that Obama just won’t admit that the surge worked, Barack must say that this country has grown tired of listening to McCain use that tired line over and over. He needs to say that it is time for McCain to take responsibility for his vote and continued support of the Bush-Cheney occupation when it was obvious that it is and was a disaster, and that if McCain wants to have our troops come him victorious, then he must define what victory is and not just use that as a tag line with absolutely no meaning or substance.

I want to see Barack Obama thoughtfully and methodically take McCain apart. Not rudely, not unfairly, but with the class and style that Tom Cruise’s character did in A Few Good Men. A lot of this country will not support just a general mudslinging of John McCain, because his overall character and personality seem to draw a lot of sympathy and compassion, but if it is done right, with McCain left looking inept, angry and bewildered because Barack has clearly pointed out why he is the man this country needs and why McCain is just not mentally or strategically up to the task, the country will rally around Obama and we will witness for the first time a significant uptick in the polls for Obama and the general understanding that McCain gave it a good run, but it is truly over.

McCain Gets Drubbing on Letterman

John McCain cancelled his scheduled appearance tonight on the David Letterman Show. His last-minute cancellation definitely struck a bad chord with Letterman, and this video will not make McCain and his supporters very happy.

Watch this!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjkCrfylq-E

McCain Throws Curve to Cover Up Another Mess

This has not been the best week for the McCain-Palin campaign. Well, that’s an understatement. His numbers are tanking in just about every state polling, his vice-presidential candidate is pretty much embarrassing herself every single day and his own discomfort with the economic condition of this country is becoming more and more apparent. But none of these things was enough to cause the McCain camp to come out and tell the world that they were suspending their campaign and that they wished to cancel tomorrow night’s debate with Barack Obama.

Then what was the huge calamity that suddenly caused John McCain to feel that he couldn’t go on with his regular schedule? Was it the economic disaster that is befalling our financial markets and the banking industry? Well, I sincerely doubt that. If that was the reason, then McCain would have headed to Washington on Monday or over this past weekend. Was it the fact that McCain was being summoned back to the Senate by Senate Leader Harry Reid or even perhaps by the president? Well, hardly. Not only was McCain not expected or needed to confuse the people negotiating this delicate deal in the making, but it was McCain himself who requested that the president invite he and Obama for today’s meeting.

No, McCain’s political world is crumbling around him. Word has made it to the mainstream media that John McCain’s own campaign manager, Rick Davis has had very close ties to beleaguered mortgage leader Freddie Mac and only went off their payroll last month. Records of the company show that Davis and/or his company have performed no specific task for Freddie Mac, and that leads one to conjecture that keeping Davis on the payroll was buying influence with the McCain presidential campaign, which not only belies previous statements of John McCain himself, but just continues to demonstrate McCain’s reliance on professional lobbyists and that he is just another Republican who has very close ties to big business and the very companies that are currently being bailed out by the federal government.

We have witnessed John McCain and his Rove-trained staff throwing this country a curve every time they need to change the subject. It started with the selection of Sarah Palin as the potential vice-president, and it has continued on about a weekly basis. I would strongly advise everyone, particularly all people interested in fairness and the future of this country, plus the mainstream media to keep their eye on the ball and not allow the Republican Party, currently represented by the McCain-Palin campaign, to divert our attention off of the subject at hand, whatever it is on any particular day. Sadly, John McCain’s motivations and actions are quite transparent, and he and his running mate should be held to the same standard that Barack Obama is held to and be forced to answer any and all questions that are prompted by their actions and agenda.

Let's Slow Down This Frantic Rush to Action

I have been doing my best to follow the current financial crisis in this country, and although it is very complex, one thing I know for sure…there is absolutely no reason to rush to get this bailout done. I would rather see a deal that is fair to the American taxpayer, and it strikes me that getting this done rapidly just does not serve the American consumer. I have no doubt that a bailout, whether it’s done tomorrow or whether all parties are taken into account before a deal is struck, will satisfactorily bail out the offending financial institutions and give them what they require to keep afloat.

What I would like to see Barack do is come out and say that before Congress rubber-stamps the deal quickly thrown together by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that has language in it that the deal can’t be reviewed by any oversight committee, court or government agency, that they should allow the experienced team of advisors that have already assembled to assist Obama with his economic plan to meet this week or next for the purpose of reviewing the plan on the table and to make certain that it meets all of the objectives that have been laid out by Barack recently and what he has said in the past. It will demonstrate tremendous leadership standing up and making sure that this is the best and most thoughtful deal that will protect the American people while providing the necessary resources to the offending companies in question.

Furthermore, Barack should announce that other experienced voices with their own bailout plans be considered before this country is forced to live with a bailout that protects large multi-national corporations who should not be rewarded for gross mismanagement and the McCain-Bush led Republican Party, which has basically given their approval to these companies to conduct themselves unethically when they all knew that we would ultimately arrive at this time of crisis. But it is a crisis that deserves more than just a band-aid, and haven’t we allowed the Republicans to destroy this country’s financial infrastructure enough already?

it can also be argued quite successfully that this crisis has actually been manufactured and that George Bush’s and Dick Cheney’s greatest wish is to leave this country in a colossal fiscal mess so that whoever becomes president will literally have no money to deal with and very few options to manage their way out of this totally preventable disaster. It is also probable that it is the wisdom of the McCain campaign that the more emergency issues that the new president will face, the less attractive that Obama will appear to people who are the most susceptible to the fear mongering that the McCain campaign has been peddling since this election season began.

There are a couple of things to read that reinforce the concept that we definitely should not rush into a deal that I believe strongly will surely make Wall Street and higher end investors absolutely delighted, because this is truly a legal theft of the American treasury without any ability for the average American to recoup anything for giving this lovely gift to the wealthiest among us, but I also believe that in the end, we, the lowly American taxpayer, will be left with very little to show for our hard-earned money just being handed over to what I consider the least deserving recipients of these funds, the very people and companies who knowingly and completely voluntarily ran their companies with a cavalier attitude knowing that they would just be turning their bad debts over to financial speculators who would be left holding the bag and would eventually be holding their hands out and begging to be bailed out.

Barack, let’s not join the chorus of people who bow our heads and just agree to go along with everyone else. I realize that we will have a bailout program ultimately one way or the other, but it should not ignore the very people who are the ones providing the ultimate funding of this close to trillion dollar bailout, the American taxpayers and consumers.

Finally, while I don’t believe in restricting how much money any CEO or the hierarchy of any company can earn, I do believe that it is highly appropriate to call for an investigation into the actions and procedures leading up to this financial debacle, and should anyone in any one of these companies, or governmental agencies for that matter, be found to have violated any laws or protocols established by government regulation, they should be held accountable and be subject to any civil or criminal penalties that apply.

http://krugmhttp://money.cnn.com/2008/09/22/news/economy/bailout_proposal_Monday/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/22/news/economy/bailout_proposal_Monday/index.htm?cnn=yes

The Ad That John McCain Does Not Want You to See

Check this ad out, and I think you'll agree that it should be in everyone's mailbox tomorrow morning.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/20/85055/0190/606/604527

The New Outcry: Give it Back

In this past week, we have witnessed the complete collapse of the financial markets in this country. Almost every mid-size and large bank and financial house is in deep trouble and is getting in line for a bailout. The stock market has gone down almost a thousand points over the past week and consumer confidence is in the toilet.

I acknowledge that Barack Obama will finally be the recipient of positive attention because he is the only candidate that is offering some concrete plans to turn this crisis around short-term and long, but he cannot let this moment go by without alerting the American people not only how he will be the president that this country needs to spur this new economy on, but that John McCain, as a long-term member of the Commerce Committee and working in cahoots with Senator Phil Gramm and other Republican leaders, caused oversight and regulation of financial institutions to evaporate and has made a dramatic negative impact on this country’s economic situation and has had a huge hand in what is happening at this moment.

Additionally, I do believe that the meltdown of the savings and loan industry and McCain’s involvement and complicity in that fiasco – called the Keating 5 -- is tremendously relevant to what is happening right at this moment, and I believe strongly that American consumers and current voters should be brought up-to-date on McCain’s history of intervening on behalf of these gigantic financial corporations and that he cannot be expected to suddenly provide oversight and regulatory power over companies that he has spent over twenty years protecting and making them more and more powerful and dominant over the American consumer.

I also recognize that it is not feasible or wise for Barack to suggest that he clamp down on salaries that CEOs and/or the hierarchy of these companies earn, but that shouldn’t stop him and all of us from stigmatizing large corporation CEOs like Carly Fiorina and others who have ridden their companies down and then walk away with a golden parachute or get huge supposed retirement packages from these huge failing companies that are now being bailed out while employees of these companies lose their jobs and most of the time their pensions.

Barack should be saying, “Give it back!” These CEOs can’t be required by law to forgo their millions. Most of these separation packages for “retiring” CEOs are predetermined or designated by the company’s shareholders, but any CEO who has the slightest bit of decency and honor should hear that the American people, starting with the future president, Obama want this obscene amount money or even a part of it that they are walking away with, sometimes in the tens of millions of dollars, given back to whatever fund which could be disseminated to the people within the company that are losing their jobs, livelihood and sometimes all the money they have saved in 401K plans, retirement plans and the like.

I think this would be a very good message, and I can’t imagine that anyone would support a CEO who did everything a greedy leader could do to destroy the company that they were supposed to be running positively be allowed to accept millions while the company they headed gets bailed out for billions by our government while the vast majority of the employees get laid off or while the company gets restructured as it gets swallowed up for pennies on the dollar by another corporation or by the government itself.

Experience, Exschmerience

The experience argument is old and tired, and frankly, just not relevant. It is obvious at this point that the vast majority of supporters of the Republican ticket and apparently many uninformed women in this country seem to be flocking to Sarah Palin, who on the experience scale ranks somewhere between a small city administrator and a parent who shuttles her kids back and forth to the ice hockey rink. The old adage that the longer one serves, the more presidential one appears seems to have gone out the window.

Let’s face facts. If experience was what counts in this country, West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, at 82, would be the president. He would have just been elected after the death of President Strom Thurmond, who would have died in office at age 101. Vice-president Mickey Rooney, who was selected as Byrd’s vice-president because he’s so doggone cute, is relatively young at 87. We should respect and revere people who have made it to the twilight years of their lives, but these are not criteria and qualification for the office of president and vice-president.

I live here in Silicon Valley, California. The energetic, educated and insightful youth running innovative multi-national companies that reside here in the San Francisco Bay Area set a standard that is unparalleled in this country. Yes, there are still people at these companies who have years of experience and have plenty of years on this earth, but there is a tremendous amount of room made in these companies for the most skilled and the most qualified person, and in many of these companies, the person at the top is the youngest person in the company.

The amount of experience that one has, while a factor in most industries and certainly in politics, is not as high on the list, in my opinion, as intelligence, ability to reach out to others, particular those on the other side of an issue, and their track record; in other words, what they’ve already done and accomplished or not accomplished. For example, if a candidate has worked hard to pass sweeping ethics reform, I would expect that person to set very high ethical standards in their own life and the way they govern. If a candidate has voted against raising the minimum wage dozens of times or eliminating regulations on banks and financial institutions, I wouldn’t suddenly expect that person to crack down on those same companies once he becomes president.

So to get to the bottom line, let’s not waste any more time speaking of experience or comparing who has more experience in office or years on this earth. It is a specious argument, and if that is the criterion we go by, John McCain wins hands down. But does that make him the better choice for president? No way. Does the fact that Sarah Palin has been the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska and is the only candidate with executive experience make one damn bit of difference? Absolutely not. If we simply take a look at what these candidates have done with their time in office, whether they were there for one year, five years or twenty-six, that tells the real story. I will take a less experienced Barack Obama 100 times out of 100 over the very experienced, but highly unqualified John McCain.

Picking Your President by the Color of his Skin

I have been talking to a lot of people recently, including dozens of people in the State of Nevada. I am very pleased to report that there are a lot of Obama supporters out there, but I do feel that some of the people who just won't comment or come up with completely bogus reasons why they won't consider the candidacy of Barack Obama are quietly or secretly thinking that they're just not ready to vote for a black man.

This is so sad. I recognize that there were times when blacks were denied the vote, a time when even women were denied the vote. Although I never lived there, I acknowledge that there was a time when blacks were denied the use of certain hotels, the front of the bus or even use of a public restroom. Somebody had to break the mold, realize that we live in a different world and that all people in this country are created equal and everyone is entitled to the same rights and privileges, including the right to be voted into the presidency.

I have found the most profound yet simple vignette that I believe puts racism so succinctly into a very easily digestible nugget. Pass it on, because it is something that everyone should see.

How racism works

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class? What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization? What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard? What if Obama were a member of the “Keating 5”? What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Forget the Insults, Stick to the Facts

I enjoy the image of John McCain as an out-of-touch buffoon with big 1980s glasses and being reminded that he doesn’t even know how to send an e-mail as much as the next guy, but it is just not getting us anywhere. The truth is that in this last fifty days, this race is going to be about issues. I can’t state that strongly enough! John McCain simply speaking is the weaker candidate in every category that we measure presidential candidates, but as his people have been saying over and over, this race isn’t about issues.

They are wrong! Clearly that is the campaign that they’re running, but up until this past week, we have been playing right into their hands. Yes, we respond, we react, we coil in shock and surprise, but in the end, the McCain campaign, being run by the same people who brought us the Bush-Cheney regime for eight years, know exactly what they’re doing. They are defining who Barack Obama is, and it wouldn’t shock me at all to hear that Barack once voted in favor of bringing back slavery and having Fox News polling on that within five minutes of that pronouncement.

My cousin gave me a phrase that I think must be coming out of Obama’s mouth every day from now until the election, and that is that every time (which we know will be every day until the election) McCain lies about Obama, his positions, his votes, his life, Barack says something like “That’s not honest and that’s not honorable.” It has already been said, but the difference from the past few weeks till now is that Barack should be talking about honesty and honorability and then move on to the issues and show over and over again that McCain refuses to speak about the issues because he would rather divert the public’s attention from his own positions, because his positions are not consistent with what is either best for this country or he knows deep down that the average American would not like his positions on the issues.

This is crunch time. If we don’t make some significant headway here, we will all be licking our wounds, shaking our heads and saying “I give up.” Well, I for one am not ready to throw in the towel. This is still our race to lose, and I say we are going to win. We can win, but it’s going to take some new slogans. As Thomas Friedman said in the NY Times, the McCain-Palin ticket has hijacked the change slogan. Who cares? It’s a tired slogan, anyway. Let’s come up with something new, something like “John McCain thinks that change means doing things in exactly the same way as before. Well, if that’s his definition, he can have it. I will use a different word, and that is action. Put me in office and watch the difference between the last eight years and the next four. I will provide new leadership for this country. I am you. I livemy life like you live yours. I know what to do when I get into the White House. John McCain tells you he knows what to do on day one, but he can’t even do it with a straight face. Elect me and I will never forget one day that I work for you, not corporations, not TV networks, not the Pentagon and not the leaders of any other country. I am you.”

That is off the top of my head, but let’s shake things up, come up with some slick catchy phrases that people will find themselves repeating to their friends and family, and let’s not spend one more day allowing McCain and Palin defining who we are and what we stand for. They have shown us that like puppets, they will do whatever they are told, and their masters aren’t called masters for nothing. They are damn good at what they do.

McCain Campaign Committing Fraud

Let’s not kid ourselves. The Republican Party is just getting started. They will do anything, absolutely everything to stay in office for the next four years. They have no hesitation to commit fraud if they need to, and they are actually in the process. Right now, in many areas of this country, the Rove-lead Republican Party under the label McCain campaign is sending out absentee ballots to Democrats.

Providing this service makes the McCain campaign appear to be helpful to voters across this land, except pay very close attention to these absentee ballots. They all don’t have the proper return address. Some of them list a registrar of voters in the wrong city, the incorrect P.O. box number or simply contain misinformation that will cause the absentee ballot to be mailed to the incorrect location and will not reflect the voter’s wishes.

If you see one of these arrive in your mailbox, alert your local registrar’s office immediately, or at least make certain that if you want send back an absentee ballot request, that the form you’re filling out comes from an authorized source and gets mailed back to the appropriate location so that every vote is counted and every vote counts.

One really has to question a party that tries so desperately to suppress votes in so many different ways. Between providing an inadequate amount of voting machines in heavily populated Democratic areas, to removing voters from voter rolls for reasons that do not necessarily prove that there is no voter at an address, to literally removing voters whose names resemble convicted felons, to manipulating the hard drives of voting machines to switch Democratic votes to the Republican candidate, the Republicans are in the process of attempting to steal another election.

Let’s stand up and not allow them to do it again. And if we show up in overwhelming numbers, we can defeat the scurrilous and nefarious activities that we know will happen. Let’s make certain that Barack gets in the White House so that we can put an end to these unacceptable practices and sadly the Republicans have just gotten too good at.

Distortions, Lies and John McCain Approves it All

Every once in a while, a video comes along that is a must-see. This is one of them. If you agree with me, please pass it on to everyone in your group and those of your friends and family that will need to see this.

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH0xzsogzAk

Time to Stay on the Offense

Well, finally. Good for you! Barack, I always knew you had it in you. Doesn’t it feel better to defend yourself and not allow yourself to be incorrectly defined? All of your supporters see what’s been going on, but there are millions of people out there in TV land who, with the help of the media (which will never be on your side), believe what they hear and sadly will probably never hear an opposing viewpoint or rebuttal to the tremendously biased information that is fed to them.

But you have gone a long way toward counteracting that condition. The media will pay attention to you if you rise up in defense of your position if it is done in easily digestible bites, where the average American can easily understand your point and is able to contrast the truth with the lies that are being served up by your opponents. I think you have breathed life back into half of this country today.

Now it’s time to go on the offense. How do you do that? Easy and quite simple! Start asking John McCain how it is that he can claim to be supporting the troops when he recently rallied against the 2008 GI Bill and didn’t even show up to vote for it. You need to explain McCain’s stated reason for being against it and why he was so completely misguided and just plain wrong. You can also throw in that McCain also voted against almost a dozen bills over the past twenty years that would have provided support to troops in harm’s way, assistance to returning veterans in both healthcare and other financing, and that it is just unbelievable that a veteran like McCain would not be empathetic to the plight of the men and women in uniform and recognize that they, like him at the time, deserve the compassion and appreciation of their government.

Another great issue is this conjured up benefit to drilling offshore in all areas of this country and the manufactured criticism that you are somehow against helping to find domestic sources of fuel and energy and just want to stick it to the American people and continue supporting foreign dictators. This is just a ridiculous argument and should be turned right back on McCain. You have had to endure being mocked about keeping our tires properly inflated, etc. It is imperative that you turn the tables on McCain by asking him to explain how long this supposed drilling will actually benefit our country, to acknowledge that any newly discovered gasoline would be owned and controlled by the very oil companies that are already screwing the American consumer and that they will most likely try to sell any new-found oil to foreign buyers that are willing to pay top dollar for it. You can also point out that McCain has voted for years against wind farms, searches and funding for alternative sources of energy, etc.

Let’s face it, Barack. There are a lot of issues to choose from. John McCain is a walking contradiction and a flip-flopper extraordinaire. He is busy at the moment hiding behind the media created and overly hyped Sarah Palin, but if you handle this correctly and call on him to answer some very serious questions that not only deserve an answer, but will actually get the attention of the media and ultimately of the American people, he will be forced to come out and at least bob and weave, and you will have successfully turned some of these wedge issues that he’s been slamming you with right back on him, and I believe with all my heart that he is very vulnerable on so many topics and the last thing he’s expecting or prepared to do is have to answer to anybody at this point.

We’re all fired up, Barack. You got us to this point. Take us the rest of the way!! We’re almost there. Let’s take it to ‘em.

Barack,Where's the Outrage?

Yesterday I wrote about the need for a press conference or special speech regarding a clarification of Barack’s record and an effort to explain the truth of the Obama history and positions for all to see. Well, I have given this a lot of thought today, and after reading a lot of heartfelt and impassioned blogs and listening to Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann and Mike Malloy on the radio, particular tonight, I have ramped up my opinion on what kind of reaction Barack and Joe should have on the lies being made against them on a daily basis.

It’s pretty simple, really. Call a liar a liar. When John McCain says that you have no record in the US Senate, you say, “Senator McCain, you are a liar! I have had enough of your lies and distortions of my record. You know damn well that…” and then you can clarify what the truth is. When Sarah Palin repeats her ridiculous assertion that being the mayor of Wasilla is kinda like being a community organizer, you should be saying, “Mrs. Palin, apparently you have not a clue what being a community organizer does,” and then you can go on to explain what you did as a community organizer, which is a fabulous and noble profession.

When McCain strategist Tucker Bounds told Campbell Brown on CNN that both Obama and Biden voted for the legislation containing the “bridge to nowhere,” which they absolutely did not, Obama and Biden both should have been on the TV within twenty minutes saying in a very indignant manner “Mr. Bounds speaking on behalf of the McCain campaign just lied to CNN about my record. I did not vote for the bridge to nowhere, and he knows that I didn’t and is being instructed to lie by John McCain and Karl Rove.” When the latest ad came out painting Obama as advocating teaching sex education to little children, Barack needs to come out immediately and completely and vehemently denounce this type of ad as unacceptable, below the belt, absolutely despicable and reflective of people who are so desperate that they’ll say anything to get elected.

I watched the Obama interview over the past two days on Keith Olbermann and with all due respect, Barack, you are too kind, too literate and just too esoteric. I suggest following the KISS doctrine that McCain and Palin obviously follow, which is keep it simple, speak in short spurts so that people of every level of intelligence get what you’re saying, and when they say that you’ll raise taxes, you say “I will not raises taxes on anyone but rich people. I have had enough of McCain lying about my record and position.” When Palin or any of the other Republican clones say that you are so weak on terrorism that you’ll insist that terrorist get their rights read to them, you say, “Well, I know this is hard for McCain and Palin to understand, but I actually insist on following the constitution of the United States.”

Barack, we can win this, and I know that you are a nice guy. As a matter of fact, Joe Biden is a wonderful and honest guy, too, but being nice and sweet and genteel will only win you points at a neighborhood barbeque. McCain, Palin, Rove and their attack dogs are playing hardball. They are in the process of defining you, just like they did John Kerry. Kerry was an acknowledged war hero that they turned into a US hating unpatriotic buffoon. That became known as Swiftboating. Let’s not allow it to happen again.

Feeling of Hope, Prosperity and Community

This is something that I’ve wanted to try to put into words for a while now. During the Clinton years, despite a couple of bumps in the road, people in this country felt proud, energized, prosperous, hopeful and happy about their lives and anticipated better days ahead. When George W. Bush was appointed president, people became increasingly disillusioned by an administration that ignored their wishes, trampled on their rights and passed legislation into law that gave more rights and privileges to corporations and large entities and less for individuals, consumers and – well, just regular folks.

I believe with all my heart that a McCain Administration will bring more of the same. Barack Obama doesn’t just use change and hope as a slogan; it is a state of mind, a realization that there will be a change in Washington. Change for the good, a change in the way that our president governs and the feeling that he won’t do things because he has a hunch or a theory, but that he has consulted with experienced leaders from all perspectives to come up with what is the best direction for the American people.

This cannot be overlooked. How people feel in this country, whether they’re hopeful or in despair, makes a difference and means something. I, like millions of people in this country, wish to go back to better times, happier times when we were considered into the equation of our government, where our leader and the leader of the free world looked at all angles and into the future to see whether his decisions are right, to figure out how they will affect this country and didn’t just shrug off the wishes of the citizens of this country as just another voice looking for attention. In case anyone has forgotten, this is our country, and the president of the United States works for us, not the other way around.

So let’s not ignore the climate and the good feeling that a President Obama will bring to this country. We are a country of doers, of hard workers and will work with pride, and when our leader includes us in the mix, we will give everything we have to support him and make this country the most prosperous it can possibly be. Obama will give us all the tools we need to fulfill that mission. I want to feel good. Don’t you? Let’s get going and do everything we can to elect Barack Obama.

Time for Another Huge Address

There are have been a couple of times in this campaign when Barack Obama has felt it vital to hold large press conferences to crystallize certain ideas and clarify an issue or group of issues that needed to be focused on and drive home his perspective and position. One was on religion and the Reverend Wright issue, and the other was about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how he would pursue them as president and bring the occupation of Iraq to an end.

Well, I think it’s time for another one. Barack has been under attack for the past few weeks, having his record and position twisted like a pretzel and misrepresented or even lied about. He is still thought to be a Muslim by up to twenty percent of this country and certain networks still put forth this idea that his relationships with Tony Rezko and William Ayers have yet to be investigated. His activities in the US Senate have been characterized as zero, that he refuses to reach across the aisle to work with members of the other party. He has been accused of being soft on terrorists, plans to meet with world leaders without conditions, pulling out of Iraq without giving thought to victory, an unwillingness to acknowledge the success of the surge, and essentially making speeches that are full of promises that he has no intention of following through on. And lastly, McCain keeps repeating the mantra that Obama will raise taxes and just wants to grow government with no accountability.

Obama has tended to draw every network and create huge buzz when he announces one of these speeches and press conferences, and I believe these recent lies and distortions justify another one. There are certain issues that I don’t think merit any reference or could be left to surrogates to address, but his tax plan and that he will not raise taxes, his accomplishments in the Senate, his plans for Iraq and that he acknowledges the surge but that it doesn’t override McCain’s lack of plans to get us out of Iraq need to be brought out and the truth clarified. He also needs to state unequivocally that he has had enough of the mean-spirited lies that have been directed at him and his record, and he needs to use that word, “lie.” When one has evidence that his opponent has deliberately and knowingly stated things they know to be false, it is okay to call them out on it.

I have been recognizing within myself that I have been feeling very satisfied to be on the right side of history, to be supporting a candidate that I know will change this country drastically for the better, but I also have to admit that I also want my candidate to stand up strongly to defend himself and his record, to feel confident to say and do what’s right and to call your opponents who publicly and rudely distort or misrepresent your record and your positions what they are, liars.

Just Because They Say it Doesn't Make it So

Has anyone else out there in Obamaland been as frustrated as I am that Barack’s record and really his entire history has either been distorted or mocked unmercifully? It came out of the mouth of Fred Thompson, Joe Lieberman and Rudy Giuliani, and since their speeches last week, McCain and Palin just repeat the same lies over and over again, with impunity and without the slightest challenge to their veracity of some absolutely unbelievable assertions.

So for my benefit and for everyone else who needs a few quick facts to call upon when someone out there repeats one of the lies or misrepresentations that we know is just not true, we can simply cite the truth and frankly feel pretty good about doing so.

Yes, Barack was a community organizer from 1985 to 1988. He was the director for the Developing Communities Project, a church-based organization on Chicago’s South Side. Unlike the accusations that he has never had a real job or went from school to the US Senate, this organization that he headed expanded to a staff of thirteen, and their annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000.

After that, he entered into legal practice in 1992 as an attorney with Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development. During that same period, he became a professor of law at the prestigious University of Chicago Law School and taught constitutional law. Barack held both positions until 2004.

As if that wasn’t enough, halfway through his law career in 1997 Barack ran for the Illinois Senate and won. He supported legislation which included gaining bipartisan support for ethics reform and healthcare. Barack sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low income workers, negotiated welfare reform and promoted increased subsidies for childcare. He was co-chairman of the Joint Committee of Administrative Rules and was chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee.

In 2004, he was elected to the United States Senate. The legislation that he sponsored and supported includes the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. The Lugar-Obama Act served to keep weapons of mass destruction out of terrorists’ hands. The Coburn-Obama Act established a web search engine to monitor government spending with follow-up legislation called Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008.

Barack also was the primary sponsor on the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security and Democracy Promotion Act. He also sponsored the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007, the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, an amendment providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.

Committees that Barack sits on include the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Senate Committee on Veteran’s Affairs, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

I for one will not sit back and watch Barack’s positions, record and history be distorted by people who specialize in being in attack mode while at the same time remaining completely silent on what their own positions are and what their own record and history is. Let’s use our own mouths and our own brains to counteract the disingenuous rhetoric and the Palinization of this entire country. A little over one week ago, John McCain was the world’s most prolific flip-flopper, was promising to govern exactly like the Bush-Cheney regime and had become the master of the gaffe and was demonstrating a complete lack of preparedness to be president.

Let’s not lose sight of who Barack Obama is running against, who will be president if Barack isn’t and go after him with tenacity, honesty and a great amount of spirit with the knowledge that we feel thoroughly confident in our choice for president and vice-president, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

This is Our Time, This is Our Country

At this very moment, I am sitting in the Camp Obama in South San Francisco with a couple of hundred of extremely dedicated and passionate supporters of Barack Obama. We are all leaders, but we’re not special. We are all motivated to elect our candidate of choice, but only because we recognize how he will change this country. Most importantly, you are also supporters of Barack Obama, you are motivated to elect Barack Obama and you desire the kind of change that Barack Obama will bring to this country.

So where do we go from here? Well, I do have a couple of ideas. We have 59 days left until the election on November 4th. After that, you can go back to your regular life, sit back and hopefully reflect on a successful campaign and a very satisfying victory, but until then, the success of this campaign is on your shoulders. If you can’t get fired up over the next two months, it is doubtful that there will be another time in your life that you will. This is the cause we have been waiting for. This is the candidate that we have all been looking for. This is the time of our lives that it is mandatory to put everything else on the back burner and work for our most important goal, to do everything we can to get Barack Obama into office.

It is really this simple. We can sit back and watch our family, friends, neighbors and co-workers slowly begin to question whether Barack should be their next president while they listen to his opposition belittling his accomplishments, misrepresenting his agenda, literally lying about who he is and what he stands for, or we can spring into action, remind people that what they knew about Barack hasn’t changed, that the Obama-Biden ticket is our best hope for the future and that what we all want for this country is what the Obama campaign represents for every American.

How do you get involved or reinsert yourself back into this campaign? We have literally 59 days left. There are calls to make, doors to be knocked on, voters to be registered, and for those of you willing to make just a little more commitment, there are doors to knock on in Nevada and other battleground states. An hour a day, a day per week or a half an hour here or there will make such a huge difference between the election of McCain-Palin and Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

I just got back from Denver, and it was a great privilege to represent all of you who couldn’t be there. I am truly fired up and I want you to join me and every other dedicated, passionate person in this campaign today. Contact me at markbrickman2002@yahoo.com or log on to www.mybarackobama.com and see what events are taking place near your home. We have a beautiful office in San Carlos (El Camino Real one block south of San Carlos Avenue) waiting for you filled with computers, telephones and friendly staff.

If not now, when? There is no sense of empowerment and a sense of satisfaction and involvement that is like getting involved, making a difference and working on behalf of a spectacular candidate, an aggressive and progressive movement and the opportunity to be a part of changing this country and world for the better in every way. You are the one that we have been waiting for. Come on. Get fired up! Our time is now.

The Secret to Putting McCain Away

I have given some significant thought over the past couple of days as to how defeat the McCain-Palin ticket and to put Obama-Biden ahead to stay and on the road to a handsome victory six weeks from now. Number one is this: As popular and energized as the Republican base and media has become since Sarah Palin was selected as McCain’s running mate, the truth of the matter is that she was ultimately selected for one reason and one reason only, and that is to change the conversation and put Barack Obama on a different track from what he was on just one week ago.

There is one person that Barack Obama and Joe Biden should be focusing on…John McCain. If he wins, he will be the president. Despite what we’ve been hearing from almost everyone that gets a microphone stuck in their face, Sarah Palin has very little experience and is not qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and everyone knows it. But going after her shortcomings, her lies, her controversial history will not win many points and will definitely not put any major dents into John McCain. Only placing criticism squarely on McCain and pointing out his limitations, his terrible record, his history of flip-flops and his devotion to the Bush-Cheney regime is going to score any points and make people sit up and take notice that he is not the better choice for president.

But criticism and reminding people of the truth about McCain will not do it alone. Barack Obama with the assistance of Joe Biden must be constantly talking about why they will be the better choice for president. They must talk about the economy, Social Security, the middle class, the truth about the occupation of Iraq, their new approach to foreign diplomacy, their plans for change on the first day they take office. It is also absolutely mandatory that Barack clarify how he plans to pay for what appears to most people like a grandiose list of promises of programs and this will also serve to eliminate a major talking point of Republican pundits and candidates, as well.

Finally, Obama and Biden must make it very clear that they represent the future, that their style of governing is not only the real change in this election, but will provide a new feeling of hope, of prosperity and the promise of a new way of thinking and a dynamic new direction for this country. It is this very vital point that must be driven home every time either Obama or Biden speak, and it is this crucial piece that will allow people in this country to realize the huge chasm between an Obama presidency and a McCain.

Read My Lipstick...No New Ideas

In an attempt to deliver a stirring, dramatic and historic speech, Sarah Palin instead resorted to a speech filled with unfair attacks, sarcasm and inaccurate references to herself and promising changes that were both disingenuous and not plausible. Check out this article from her hometown newspaper http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/515517.html

What Palin failed to mention is anything about many of her extreme positions on abortion rights, global climate change, equal pay for women and gun control issues. She gave the impression that she is against government waste and fights for her citizens as a reformer, but her limited experience as mayor and then governor of Alaska shows us just the opposite.

But a recent list of books that she wanted banned from the Wasilla Public Library truly demonstrates that Palin not only has no new ideas, but is really a throwback to days of old when we needed to always be full of fear, to go back to days when we had a less than equal world and where anyone who does not look like Sarah Palin must fight every day for the same rights and privileges that she and her family have come to take for granted.

This is the list that comes from the records of the Wasilla library. Most of these books are not a surprise, but some of them do raise some questions as to whether she wants citizens to be left completely uninformed and uninspired.

Here’s the list and a little preamble that goes along with the list from the person who provided this list of proposed banned books:

More things to learn about Sarah Palin
>
>For those of you who think that all of the opposition to Sarah Palin is
>from "leftwing" nuts; the following is a list of books that she tried to
>get banned when she was mayor of Wasilla. I am not sure that Mark Twain,
>William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou and Geoffrey Chaucer would be considered
>dangerous to children. Judy Blume give me a break. Harry Potter, who is
>kidding who. I also fail to see how Webster's Ninth New Collegiate
>Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff should be banned.
>
>This information is taken from the official minutes of the Wasilla Library
>Board. When the librarian refused Palin tried to get her fired as she did
>with the Safety Director of the State who refused to fire a trooper who was
>getting a vicious divorce from her sister
>
>She also told her Assembly of God Church in June 2008 that it is "God's
>Will" that the federal government contribute to the expansion of the Alaska
>pipeline. (M ust have been talking to George Bush). She sounds like one of
>those lawyers Bush put into the justice department.
>
>This is the list of books Palin tried to have banned. As many of you will
>notice it is a hit parade for book burners.
>
>A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
>A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
>Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
>As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
>Blubber by Judy Blume
>Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
>Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
>Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
>Carrie by Stephen King
>Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
>Christine by Stephen King
>Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
>Cujo by Stephen King
>Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
>Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
>Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
>Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
>Decameron by Boccaccio
>East of Eden by John Steinbeck
>Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
>Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by J ohn Cleland
>Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
>Forever by Judy Blume
>Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
>Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
>Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
>Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
>Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
>Have to Go by Robert Munsch
>Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
>How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
>Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
>I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
>Impressions edited by Jack Booth
>In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
>It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
>James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
>Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
>Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
>Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
>Lord of the Flies by William Golding
>Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
>Lysistrata by Aristophane s
>More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
>My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
>My House by Nikki Giovanni
>My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
>Night Chills by Dean Koontz
>Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
>On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
>One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
>One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
>One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
>Ordinary People by Judith Guest
>Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
>Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
>Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
>Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
>Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
>Separate Peace by John Knowles
>Silas Marner by George Eliot
>Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
>Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
>The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
>The Bastard by John Jakes
>The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
>The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
>The Color Purple by Alice Walker
>The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
>The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
>The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
>The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
>The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
>The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
>The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
>The Living Bible by William C. Bower
>The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
>The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
>The Pigman by Paul Zindel
>The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
>The Shining by Stephen King
>The Witches by Roald Dahl
>The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
>Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
>To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
>Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
>Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster
>Editorial Staff
>Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween
>Symbols by Edna Barth

I'm Thrilled This Isn't My Party

I am a proud Democrat and fully support my party’s candidates for president and vice-president. Because of this fact, I would be very upset if I watched speeches coming from my party that I either knew or found out later contained so much misinformation and/or complete lies about our opponents. In fact, I’d be extremely embarrassed and probably would have to scale back my support and my admiration for candidates that I am so thrilled about.

Maybe this is one of many reasons I’m not a Republican, because I’d be horrified if I had to sit through the drivel that I heard last night. From Mitt Romney to Rudy Giuliani to Mike Huckabee all the way through to Sarah Palin, their speeches were filled with hollow references to patriotism, vague promises to change by keeping the status quo and of course lies about the record and life story of Barack Obama.

That is why I am absolutely delighted these speeches are taped, scrutinized and carefully examined by people who actually use their heads and objectively weigh what’s the truth and what’s possibly less than true. So without further adieu, please check this out http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/gop_convention_spin_part_ii.html

Palin Delivers Hollow Speech

As my wife and I sat in our darkened living room watching Sarah Palin’s momentous speech last night, I was left with a lot of anger, bewilderment and admiration that she would talk for such a long time without saying anything of substance about herself and John McCain. But as the evening progressed and I listened to the praise that she was getting and the excitement that she had engendered, I was struck with one overriding thought: Who in the hell does she think she is? Or more precisely, who in the hell does Bush’s speech writer think she is? This woman spent a good part of her speech unmercifully blasting Barack Obama, and yet to my observation, she is so far removed from national politics, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that she has no right to criticize anyone, much less a solid, popular and fully vetted candidate who has been campaigning in the open for just about the same amount of time that Palin has been the governor of Alaska.

It might not have bothered me as much if she was debating the issues with Obama and contrasting them with her own, but her attacks were overly sarcastic, curiously divisive and mean, but most critical, downright inaccurate or just an outright lie http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080904/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_fact_check

There is no doubt that Palin is a formidable candidate. She is ballsy and no shrinking violet. She is a very persuasive and passionate speaker, and her style will cause most people to overlook or completely ignore her severely conservative social positions and the fact that she plays hardball Republican politics with the best of them.

It is absolutely essential that we, the Obama supporters and the campaign itself, not take this woman lightly or count on the fact that the rest of this country will recognize who this woman is and what she represents. They won’t!! Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the campaign must come out with guns blazing, and it is up to all of us to communicate to everyone, including the media, who Sarah Palin is, what a bundle of hypocrisy she is, and insist that she be questioned thoroughly and in a detailed manner drawing out all of her objectionable positions and just tremendous lack of exposure to foreign policy and most issues that are most important to people of the lower 48.

If we witness the love affair that most media outlets are having with the image being created of Sarah Palin and sit back while they get lulled into a stupor and somehow forget to ask Palin or McCain for that matter about anything of substance and/or challenge any statements or assertions that they’ll be making over the next several weeks, then the last line of defense will be all of us making absolutely certain that we work our butts off making sure that Obama’s message gets out and we take advantage of every opportunity to let anyone who will listen realize that Sarah Palin will only push a McCain presidency even further to the right and force a continuation and perpetuation of the Bush-Cheney regime that we are trying to overcome after eight very difficult years.

The very sad thing is that Barack has been constantly criticized for being just a gifted speech-giver filled with hollow rhetoric and not much to offer. As insulting and untrue as that is, this is exactly what Sarah Palin has done so far. She’s delivered one speech. She has not campaigned for the office of vice-president nor has she sat down for even one interview since she’s been named as the Republican nominee for VP. And just like Obama, she has a record to run on. So far, Obama’s record has been mischaracterized, mutilated and really just unfairly mocked during this convention. I can only hope that Palin’s, which also has been embellished and glossed over depending on the issue in this convention, will be exposed and examined fairly and accurately as this presidential campaign draws toward the finish.

Sarah Palin is the Consummate Washington Insider

Anyone who looks at Governor Sarah Palin and sees a pretty, naïve little hockey mom is very sadly mistaken. This is a woman whose name appears on John McCain’s pork barrel list for requesting earmarks for her town of Wasilla, AK, a town at the time of under 6,000 people, to the tune of twenty-seven million dollars for purportedly town infrastructure that was not necessary at best and redundant and caused confusion at worst. As governor, it turns out that she is currently requesting close to two hundred million dollars in earmarks for her state, even going as far as to hire indicted Senator Ted Stevens’ son and his firm as her lobbyist to negotiate the federal funding.

Additionally, during Palin’s time as mayor of Wasilla, she built up a budget deficit of twenty-two million dollars, the first deficit in the town’s history. She, as we know, plays hardball politics with oil companies, fights very hard to bring new businesses and new resources to Alaska and consistently beckons the help of her Republican pipeline to Washington, Senator Ted Stevens. But as we also realize by now, she denies the human involvement of global climate change, is a militant gun user and a lifetime member of the NRA and passionately works against a woman’s right to choose, even in the event of incest or rape. Palin also is a staunch advocate for drilling all over Alaska and the continental shelf, even in the precious Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

Possibly most disturbing is that it has now come out that Palin has attempted to ban books of apparently a religious nature from her local libraries, believes very strongly in abstinence only sex education and none other, and Palin also is embroiled in a controversy and bipartisan investigation of her behavior in the firing of a state worker who refused to discipline and/or fire her brother-in-law, a state trooper. Furthermore, like many other Republican candidates, she mischaracterized her resume by claiming that she traveled to Europe even though it was simply a fuel stopover in Shannon, Ireland on her way to her one trip out of the US, to Kuwait to visit the Alaska National Guard members.

The head of the Alaska National Guard has apparently admitted that neither he nor Governor Palin has any say-so or command over the National Guard as it gets deployed overseas. It seems like a ridiculous reference to call her the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard. As a matter of fact, Republican cronies and spokespeople have been falling all over themselves pointing out that she has more executive experience than Obama and Biden, but under that presumption, she then has more experience than John McCain, as well. As mayor, she was only considered a part-time employee, and as mayor of a small town and governor of the State of Alaska, it would be disingenuous to suggest that she deals with the issues that are inherent with the governance of just about any big city mayor or any other governor in this country.

Now it has come out that she and her husband are not only members, but that she addressed the most recent convention of an Alaska secession group, an organization that continues to call for Alaska to secede from the United State and become its own country. Although people who are biased or have a stake in the success of the Republican ticket promote Palin as a reformer, a rebel and a maverick just like McCain, the honest assessment is that Palin is a non-prominent politician from a far off state, and even though it is portrayed that she is a popular governor with an 80% approval rating, she was elected governor only because of a scandal right before the election with an extremely popular governor of vastly more experience, and even as mayor, the number of votes that she received in her re-election is equivalent to the people that go to the polls in my neighborhood.

I believe that it is the consensus in this country that Governor Palin is an exciting, bold move consistent with the status of a man who wishes to go out of the box and break out of the doldrums that the Republican Party has become, but I also believe that the selection of someone like a Sarah Palin over that of a more qualified, higher stature and vastly more experienced man or woman demonstrates that John McCain wants to win at all costs, displaying a desperation that makes him anything but the president that this country desires or deserves.

Apparently the pundits agree with us. Take a look at this little video http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/What_many_Republican_elites_really_think_about_the_Palin_pick.html

You Gotta Like that McCain Style

Let’s project about six months down the road, and let’s sadly assume for the purpose of this discussion that the McCain ticket is elected. I would like to explore the decision-making ability and judgment of McCain as he begins to tackle the issues, both domestic and international, that will immediately bombard him from day one as president. In the past couple of weeks, we had the conflict between Russia and the Country of Georgia, and even today, we have North Korea announcing that they’ll begin the process of rebuilding their nuclear infrastructure for the purpose of demonstrating to the US that they don’t like US policy and the fact that the US still considers them an evil empire.

Witnessing John McCain recently speaking out against Russia’s aggression toward Georgia and hearing his bluster, his attempt to immediately turn this back into a Cold War climate and to completely blow this skirmish totally out of proportion both scared me and reminded me that he is not the kind of reasonable, thoughtful and informed leader that I’m looking for to lead my country into the next presidency. And now hearing that McCain’s vetting team had barely spoken with Sarah Palin, only speaking to her the day before McCain offered her the vice-presidency, and knowing that McCain only had one five-minute exposure to Palin months ago before this past Friday is something that would not even be believable in a political movie, much less the real life that we live in.

If you then add Palin’s tremendous lack of experience with a thoroughly blank slate when it comes to foreign policy and recognize that John McCain is of advancing age, we have an even bigger problem. Her position on social issues is nothing short of scary, and hearing every Republican elected official and pundit rallying behind her stating Palin has more experience than Obama and Biden combined is just laughable. When reminded that that same criteria would also apply to John McCain, Rudy Giuliani actually stated that oh no, John McCain commanded his military squadron. Under this scenario, every CEO, president of a company or Boy Scoutmaster who has been involved in any kind of local community issues or political activity would be qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

On the other hand, it has been incredibly entertaining, although a bit frustrating, watching Republican spokespeople lining up to sing the praises of Palin and all but ignore or excuse McCain’s lack of judgment or shoot-from-the-hip and potentially ill-advised choice of Palin. Although the attacks on Obama regarding his lack of experience, no matter how specious, had been scoring some points in certain parts of this country, McCain has all but eliminated that argument from having any weight because Sarah Palin is the poster child for people lacking experience and national political credentials, despite what we’re currently hearing on TV and radio.

Mike Barnicle of Boston newspapers and MSNBC had a great line. He said that three years ago, Sarah Palin was the person you’d go to for an ice fishing permit. The apparent fight that she had against oil companies in Alaska was not whether or not drilling should take place, but how much money should go to the state from the obscene profits that are generated by oil companies. If you add in the fact that this woman and her family are currently undergoing a crisis with a pregnant teenager and her political office is in the middle of a corruption investigation that gets more complex and sticky as we get more knowledge of her biography and history, it is just possible that picking almost anyone else would have been more advisable for McCain and the Republican Party. If all of the above isn’t enough, I just heard that Ms. Palin has reportedly tried to ban books from her local library according to Time Magazine.

John McCain has already said in one speech that there will be more wars in the near future. He said he didn’t think that we’d have any problems with his leaving troops in Iraq for 100 years. He has admitted that the economy is not his strong suit and has gone out to prove it. He has consistently and repeatedly made errors in judgment, made incorrect references to world leaders, countries and the players within, and truth be told, he has demonstrated numerous times that he is out of touch with the lives of ordinary American people, not being familiar with the internet and certainly pretending not to know how many homes he owns. Adding Sarah Palin to the ticket is not just an insult, it is just frightening. As I heard Chris Matthews say this morning, the last person that McCain would go to for advice among his cabinet and his cronies would be Sarah Palin, and yet it is Palin who will become our president if something happens to John McCain.

The Supreme Distraction

I like to watch and listen before I jump to conclusions, but John McCain’s selection of Alaska’s governor, Sarah Palin brought out some immediate reaction. Even as I was hearing news of the new VP pick while having my early morning breakfast in Denver, I was struck by several things I heard about Sarah Palin just as I was hearing her name for the first time. Palin is a first-term governor from an unusual state, anti-choice to the point of being against abortion even if it saves the woman’s life or in the case of incest, so pro gun that she advocates shooting bears from the air, promoting home schooling over a public school education and completely against sex education in schools in favor of abstinence only classes. We can see how well that works in the Palin home-schooling educational plan.

But even after mulling over all of this information and taking it into consideration and putting it into perspective with realizing that I will never find a candidate that I completely agree with, I recognize that most of these things are simply a matter of personal choice and just different from my outlook and the way I look at my life and how I live it. We were originally told that McCain, who is now 72 years old and vulnerable to a charge of being old and out of touch, would need and want to pick a vice-presidential candidate ready to take over immediately should something happen to him, with a track record and documented experience in the economy and yes, an established foreign policy resume.

So with an acknowledgement that Palin has some significant intimacy with energy issues and deals with the oil industry and pipeline issues, which are inherent in the daily life of an Alaskan politician, it is not an appropriate qualification to say that she is a wife and mother, and although she did serve two terms as the mayor of a relatively small and insignificant town, a place where the issues plaguing most mid-size and large cities are not present, but calling her the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard is both an inappropriate reference and an insult. I took the liberty of looking up the recent activities of the Alaska National Guard, and I don’t think that the occasional rescue mission and the receipt of an award for bravery tests the mettle or split-second decision-making prowess of any elected official.

The sad thing is that between Hurricane Gustav, the pregnancy of Palin’s daughter and the admittedly interesting and provocative selection of such an enigmatic figure is overriding the one thing that is being essentially ignored…this woman just got her passport last year. Fox News, Cindy McCain and other political pundits pointing out that Alaska being up near Russia does not a successful foreign policy make. Palin has already gone on record just last month admitting that she wasn’t aware of what the vice-president actually does, and she has also taken positions that are so extreme on the environment that she has called for removing the polar bear from the endangered species list and does not believe in global climate change nor would she do anything about it.

John McCain and Sarah Palin must be questioned and challenged vigorously just as this interview of a McCain spokesperson took place yesterday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYYiw_y2qDI. To my observation, media outlets across this country are requesting interviews with Palin and McCain and these requests are being ignored or at least postponed. Yes, Palin is an energetic, attractive and seemingly well-spoken advocate for her positions, the State of Alaska and the issues that affect her family and her community in the state, but her flip-flop on Ted Stevens’ bridge to nowhere must be investigated along with her support of a group that has pushed the notion that the State of Alaska secede from the United States and become an independent territory.

More importantly, this is another demonstration of John McCain’s kneejerk decision-making and shortsighted perspective that calls his judgment into question. I can only imagine that the same handlers that disallowed the selection of a Joe Lieberman and a Tom Ridge must have really rallied against a Sarah Palin. The fact that she is a woman is very appealing, but her drastic and almost draconian viewpoints, policies and life-style are completely and diametrically opposed to the agenda and perspectives of most of the women in this country, particularly those passionate and potentially disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters that may be looking for an alternative to Obama. If that was the motivation behind the selection of Palin, it was rather misguided and thoroughly miscalculated.

But I can’t say this strongly enough: Sarah Palin is simply not qualified to be the vice-presidential candidate running with John McCain. Although the odds are against it – and I certainly wish him a long and healthy life – John McCain may have a serious health issue and is a multiple cancer victim. His vice-president must have vast experience, be a known quantity and have an established foreign policy and exposure. Ms. Palin has already admitted that she has no such policy, and even though she at some point will have go undergo an intense crash course in the ways of the world, I for one am not comfortable with a complete neophyte suddenly being thrust into the presidency and having to make immediate and significant decisions on Iraq, al-Qaeda, Russia, Europe, Israel, Sudan, Mexico and the myriad of serious issues surrounding the relationships and conflicts that demand familiarity, comfort and diplomacy experience that she arguably does not possess.

Barack Obama set just the right tone regarding Governor Palin’s daughter, that this is an internal family issue and that children of candidates are particularly off limits. I do respect his words and agree with him. But this information, or for that matter the fact that Palin is a woman, won Miss Congeniality in a beauty pageant, has five children, one just born with Down’s Syndrome and a son soon to go off to Iraq, should not cloud our vision as to who this woman is and what she stands for. I do not think even an informal investigation into what she advocates, the views she espouses and how completely out of touch she is with those of us in the lower 48 should be ignored or glossed over while we get wowed with her irreverence, the McCain spokespeople’s bluster or the pundits falling all over each other to point out how amazing she is and her vast experience heading the State of Alaska, a state that everyone knows is representative of the rest of this country and where everyone looks to say as Alaska goes, so goes the nation. Right!

What an insult to women, to governors like Charlie Crist and Tim Pawlenty who are so well-known and accomplished being passed over, to those of us who believe strongly in a woman’s right to choose, believe that weapons should not be promoted and disseminated freely in our society, believe that global climate change is real and that we should work to protect our environment and not drill for oil in every available territory without considering the ramifications and feel that we should be free to raise our families in the way that we choose to without being forced to have any religious education or moral restrictions or lack thereof.

Let’s encourage our media, our representatives and anyone with a voice to perform the vetting process that McCain and his surrogates apparently did not do. I think it’s an important indication of things to come that last Friday, we witnessed the introduction of Sarah Palin to the world with her five-month pregnant daughter being covered with a blanket, holding Palin’s baby and no mention that the 17-year-old high school –aged daughter is expecting a baby. I feel strongly that this lack of disclosure is a window of things to come, and I think we all need to look very closely at the frightening thought of an unconventional John McCain as president, an incredibly right wing Sarah Palin pushing McCain even further toward evangelical conservatism and a White House that once again pursues its own agenda without much care or consideration of what the vast majority of the American people want or need.

The Truth-o-Meter Exists

As I was sitting on the bus taking the delegate bus to Invesco Field at Mile High on Thursday afternoon, I was stuffing down a sandwich, listening to the conversation and thinking ahead to the Republican convention. I was thinking about how tremendous and inspiring the Democratic convention had been so far, and realizing that my reaction to the negative rhetoric and mischaracterizations and misrepresentations that will be coming out of the Republican convention would end up leaving me with a completely different feeling and most likely an unsettled reaction that would make me wish that I had a way to discern the difference between what’s true and what is a lie.

And then it suddenly hit me! There should be a little bubble in the right-hand corner of the screen, a kind of truth or lie register that would turn red for a lie, perhaps orange for a half truth and maybe green for the truth and even a place to go online to check out why it was not true or what the real story was. It got some good reaction on the bus and in the huge line waiting to get into the stadium, but the logistics and infrastructure that is necessary to create such a service seemed just too difficult too throw together in such a short time, since I would have loved it to be available for this upcoming Republican convention.

And then I came across something that is almost exactly that. It only proves to me once again that almost all good ideas have already been thought of, and this is no exception. It is called PolitiFact.com sponsored by the St. PetersburgTimes of Florida, and it is exactly what I envisioned. A website with a truth-o-meter to verify whether the statements and assertions of each candidate is the truth, a half-truth, a partial truth or a bald-faced lie. I am absolutely thrilled that this service is available to all of us, and we should all take advantage of it and support all of this newspaper’s hard work.

So go to www.politifact.com and check it out. And the great and equitable thing is that both sides, Democrats and Republicans alike, get the same treatment. But just between you and me, I think that the Republicans will get just a little more partial truths and outright lies and the Democrats will come out clean as a whistle more often, which makes me feel very good.

Like a Kid in a Candy Store

In addition to being a political junkie, I am the kind of person who loves to see and recognize famous faces. The Democratic National Convention in Denver was the Mother Lode of famous faces. It is the Oscars for people like me who are addicted to political theater, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle. I started out on Sunday once arriving in Denver making a list of all of the well-known people I either saw or talked to, and by Monday morning, I ran out of paper. Between the elected officials, the media and just standard celebrities, people now have to ask me if I saw so-and-so, not have me rattle them off. There’s just too many to count.

Walking into the Sheraton Downtown Hotel, home to the California and New York delegations, was like arriving at summer camp. You knew you didn’t know hardly anyone, but somehow these people were kind of your friends. You were all there for the same purpose…to have fun, vote for the future president and to be a part of history, and in this presidential campaign, we were plotting some significant new ground. Even as I stood in the line to check in, I was already engaged in conversation with delegates from New York and sharing the excitement and anticipation of the days ahead.

Pepsi Center was an absolutely outstanding facility. Finding and getting on the bus that one could only enter with the proper credentials gave me a real sense of importance, but it was entering the convention hall that was truly exhilarating. It was as if the Pepsi Center had been built to house the Democratic convention. The staging, the ornate décor, the video display and the complete layout was truly magnificent. Being seated just across from the CNN broadcast platform and watching Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, James Carville and the comings and goings of people to be interviewed was a real coup in my opinion. I loved every minute of it.

There were just too many special and magical moments to delineate here. Speeches that stand out to me are John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, Ted Kennedy, Barney Smith (who delivered maybe the most memorable line of the convention when he said he wants his president to care more about Barney Smith than he does about Smith Barney) and of course Barack Obama. We live in a fabulous time when all speeches are available on the internet by going to YouTube.com, and please take advantage of this technology by going back and listening to some of the most profound speeches in American history.

I loved every minute of this convention. Denver went crazy hosting the Democratic Party. It is a beautiful, clean, friendly and innovative city sitting at the foot of one of the most breathtaking sights in the world, the Rocky Mountains. There are great restaurants to eat at, lovely shops to visit and the City of Denver welcomed the many thousands of visitors with great signage, decorations everywhere and stores with an Obama theme and spectacular displays. From the greeters at the airport to the people of Denver making all of us feel at home, it gave us all the feeling that Denver had become the center of the world in the Obama campaign.

I was interviewed by various newspapers, television stations and radio stations, and several stand out. I was interviewed twice by KGO Radio in San Francisco and twice by the SF Chronicle, but the most unusual interviews I gave were to a newspaper reporter from Holland and a television station sending its signal live back to Denmark. I was approached by probably ten different reporters from TV and radio asking me for an interview, only to turn and walk away when they discovered that I was an Obama delegate. They were only looking for controversy and spice, and being in the spirit of unity and the desire to turn the page on the Clinton candidacy, I wasn’t about to give any red meat to the rabid and drooling media.

I was able to watch the frost on about twenty percent of the Hillary supporters literally melt before our eyes. There were a few pretty militant Hillary Clinton supporters who wouldn’t give up the fight to somehow get her the respect she deserves. There were petitions being passed around the delegation somehow demanding that a full roll call of all fifty states be done even though Senator Clinton had already conceded and said that she’d suspend her campaign and relinquish all of her delegates to Obama somewhere in the middle of the count. I refused to sign the petition, as did quite a number of the delegates, most likely believing that we should follow the wishes of the candidate herself and of the schedule and protocols already established by the Democratic Party.

There were some unforgettable moments, however. Avid Cliinton supporter and women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred walked into the California delegate’s breakfast with a gag in her mouth in the spirit of the women’s suffrage movement as if her perspective and voice was being silenced, a sad and juvenile display if I’ve ever seen one. But this is a free country, and yes, I believe in free speech and free expression, no matter how offensive that expression happens to be. I did talk to Ms. Allred a couple of times during the convention, including being in line right behind her on Thursday night at Subway sandwich shop, one of the few restaurants still serving food after midnight, and yes, I even saw her wearing an Obama button.

That is what makes this selection of Sarah Palin of Alaska so ridiculous if John McCain actually thought that Palin being a woman would peel off Hillary voters. After what I saw in Denver, and if the Democratic delegation is any kind of representation of the general Democratic population, there aren’t many people left who will not vote for the Obama-Biden ticket. Sarah Palin’s political and social outlook could not be more different than Hillary Clinton, and I don’t expect too many Democrats who once supported either Obama or Clinton to jump over, compromise almost everything they believe in to vote for a woman simply because she is a woman. I am Jewish, and I wouldn’t vote for Lieberman if he was the only candidate on the ballot.

Among the wonderful people that I had the good fortune to talk to in Denver was one gentleman who randomly stopped my friend and fellow delegate April Vargas and I as we walked back from Mile High Stadium – we obviously looked like delegates – to tell us that earlier that morning, he was working out at Denver Athletic Club and all of a sudden Barack Obama showed up and sat at a machine right near him and started working out. He told us that he was just amazed to see Barack right next to him, and when Barack asked him if he’d like to join a few other guys in the gym for a little basketball scrimmage, he jumped at the chance. He said that he hadn’t been convinced to vote for Obama, but after seeing him in action, meeting him and getting to play basketball with him, he now is an enthusiastic supporter of Obama and wanted to tell us that he is genuine, real and cared about him as if they were old friends.

A few of the more prominent people that I met and had a great experience with were Terry McAuliffe, Paul Begala and former Governor Gray Davis, each of whom were warm, friendly and people that I had more than one conversation with. I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I found these gentlemen to be more than just friendly and congenial. I also saw several celebrities that were very nice, including Susan Sarandon, former Pittsburgh Steeler Franco Harris and Jennifer Garner (at least I thought it was Jennifer Garner). I was blown a kiss from Dana Bash of CNN and got my picture taken with people like James Carville, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher just to name a few. Like I said, I was like a kid in a candy store.

I could not imagine the Democratic Party doing a more thorough job and putting on an event with more pageantry, more important and dramatic moments and a more entertaining and beautiful convention. Thursday night’s extravaganza at Invesco Field was an amazing experience with an adoring and energized crowd of 83,000 and a TV audience exceeded the viewers of the opening night of the recent Olympics. Like Pepsi Center, it was another masterful and skillful effort to turn a huge football stadium into a wonderful stage and backdrop for one of the most spectacular, important and historic speeches of our time, and if you combine Obama’s speech with performances by Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson and amazing speeches by Al Gore, Joe Biden and Senator John Lewis giving tribute to Martin Luther King, you have the makings of a night that no one in attendance in person or on TV will ever forget.

I am so honored and humbled to have been elected to be the only male Obama delegate from my Congressional district, and being there from gavel to gavel was the most rewarding and thrilling thing I’ve ever done. I represented my family, friends and neighbors to the best of my ability, and it was my greatest honor and my highest privilege to cast my ballot for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. We still have plenty of work to do to get Obama into office, and it is every one of our responsibility to help in that process. We must register as many people to vote as possible, and it is also vital to make calls to swing states to get as many undecided or uncertain voters into the Obama-Biden column. We can do this, but it won’t happen by itself. Take a half an hour or more out of your busy schedule and do something for this campaign. Our future is dependent on it.