From NY Times’s Organizing Principles: “What do community organizers do?…[They] aren’t there to solve people’s problems for them — they’re there to teach people how to help themselves…How do they do this? Every effective organizer I’ve ever known has had this talent: the ability to listen to people, rather than spin them or demonize them. [...]
Tag Archives: obama
Another reason why we want a “community organizer” and not a lone “maverick”
September 12, 2008 – 01:00 pm
From David Brook’s The Social Animal: “What emerges [from contemporary research] is not a picture of self-creating individuals gloriously free from one another, but of autonomous creatures deeply interconnected with one another. Recent Republican Party doctrine has emphasized the power of the individual, but underestimates the importance of connections, relationships, institutions and social filaments that [...]
I Thought Everyone Was Being Nasty Already
September 12, 2008 – 11:23 am
From NY Times’s Obama Plans Sharper Tone as Party Frets: “Senator Barack Obama will intensify his assault against Senator John McCain, with new television advertisements and more forceful attacks by the candidate and surrogates beginning Friday morning, as he confronts an invigorated Republican presidential ticket and increasing nervousness in the Democratic ranks.”
Scary Poll Numbers, But “Don’t Panic”
September 9, 2008 – 04:44 pm
From Salon’’s About that McCain poll “bounce”: Don’t panic — yet: “Before full-bore panic sets in on the left [due to McCain's poll bounce], I would offer several caveats: First, that these are still surveys taken in the glow of the St. Paul convention…. Second, all of the immediate post-Republican convention polling is heavily skewed [...]
Who Hires A 72-year Old?
September 3, 2008 – 10:23 pm
Republicans! It’s not about commitment to America! We all understand that McCain is committed to America. It’s not about that! It’s about making wise decisions.
Of course, your argument — or I should say, Guiliani’s argument — about Obama’s votes of “present,” and how executives aren’t allowed to vote “present.” That’s a fair argument.
But the [...]
Some Thoughts While Watching The Repub Convention
September 2, 2008 – 10:41 pm
I’m listening to former senator Fred Thompson’s speech right now, and as you would expect from a professional actor, it sounds pretty good. But here’s the thing. Along with the rest of the Republicans, he’s trying to make this election about “character,” with Sen. McCain’s P.O.W. experience as the ultimate benchmark of any question of [...]
The Democratic Convention: Part 1
August 29, 2008 – 01:13 pm
The Democratic Convention is over. Along with a slew of lesser names, we’ve heard from Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, and now, finally, the nominee himself, Sen. Barack Obama.
The Clintons
Let’s start with the Clintons. As much as I can’t stand her, Sen. Clinton’s speech was pretty [...]
Media Bias?
August 24, 2008 – 12:29 pm
From Frank Rich’s Last Call for Change We Can Believe In: “What Obama…should have learned by now is that the press is not his friend. Of course, he gets more ink and airtime than McCain; he’s sexier news. But as George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs documented in its study of six [...]
An In-Depth Look At Obama’s Economic Policies
August 20, 2008 – 01:52 pm
From NY Times Magazine’s Barack Obama, A Free-Market-Loving, Big-Spending, Fiscally Conservative Wealth Redistributionist: “‘My core economic theory is pragmatism,’ [Obama] said, ‘figuring out what works.’ This, of course, is not the whole story. Invoking pragmatism doesn’t help the average voter much; ideology, though it often gets a bad name, matters, because it offers insight into [...]
