Tonight Barack Obama gave a fantastic speech. But one part really stood out to me.
So don't ever forget that this election is not about me, or any candidate. Don't ever forget that this campaign is about you-- about your hopes, about your dreams, about your struggles, about securing your portion of the American Dream.
In the end that's really what this campaign is about. It's about us. Together. Together over 1,500,000 of us have taken ownership of this campaign and donated. We have made this campaign about us not about the special interests and there same old Washington games. Today the people of North Carolina and Indiana rejected the same old Washington distractions. They rejected the same old Washington gimmicks. They sent a strong message.
Now we need to send another huge message by showing our support by Obama. In other words, DONATING. We can start to wrap this nomination up and give us strong momentum going into the general election. We can send a message.
Ashwin Madia's parents came to America from India with $19 in cash and a dream that America would provide opportunities for their children. Now their child, Ashwin Madia is running for Congress in Minnesota's third congressional district as the Democratic Nominee to replace retiring Republican Jim Ramstad.
He is a Iraq War Vet who ran a grassroots campaign and defeated a better funded establishment candidate for the Democratic nomination. Now he is facing Erik Paulsen a state representative and extreme conservative (for example, he even voted against raising the minimum wage). This will be one of the most contested races in the country. It is targeted by both parties but it is a fantastic opportunity to send a great representative to Washington who will shake things up. That's why I'm proud to announce that Ashwin Madia is the latest Obamajority canidate and that he is joining us shortly (About 1 ET/ 12 CT) for a conversation about his campaign and the future of this country.
Follow me below the fold to learn more about Ashwin.
The results are still trickling in from Pennsylvania. The people have voted. We can't change how they voted.
But what we can do is keep fighting.
We still have Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virgina, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana. All of them still need to vote and we still need to be working hard to win.
The only way to influence polls is to take action and change minds. Don't you want to see a "OBAMA WINS PA" headline? Don't you want a big swing in the polls towards Obama? The only way to make that happen is to take action. This morning kath25 posted a great action diary that didn't get much attention so I asked if I could repost it. Hopefully this headline will get you to see this and take action. And if your not a phonebanking type you can always donate.
Obsessing over the latest ups and downs doesn't do anything. Taking action does. Read kath's easy ways to take action below the flip and take action. Even if it's just twenty minutes of your time. It makes a difference. It will help bring the 10-Point Swing Towards Obama!
Last night I posted a call to action after one of the most unfair and uninformative debates ever. It got a overwhelming response and tons of donations poured in. But we can't just do that for one night. We have primaries to win still and we need to keep the focus on action up. We still need to be taking action. Calling voters in PA. Traveling to PA for GOTV. Donating to the campaign so they have the resources to win. Doing whatever you can. And so I bring you the third day of Obama Action Week.
Tonight we saw one of the biggest "gotcha politics" debates yet. The moderators seemed set on destroying Obama by using trivial matters to play "gotcha!" Tonight we also saw why Barack Obama is the right canidate for president. Tonight he showed why he is the right canidate to take on John McCain and the right canidate to turn around our country. Because he fought back by talking about what Americans care about. The issues.
It's the economy, stupid. That was the famous banner in Bill Clinton's Little Rock War Room.
Once again the economy is a major issue. So is Iraq. So is health care. So are a whole host of other issues.
But issues only matter if they can be communicated to the American people. And you can't get any kind of message across unless you have campaign funds, unless you have dedicated volunteers that pick up the phone and call voters, that go door to door and do all the other work that needs to be done.
Polls have zero effect on the election. Daily up and downs have almost no effect on the election.
Frankly if you want Barack Obama to win the only thing that matters is action. In other words. It's the action, stupid.
Recently fellow blogger Eddie in ME alerted me to a situation in Maine in which Rita Moran, the Kennebec County Democratic Committee chair, got kicked out of her elected position as DNC Women by establishment trickery.
Here in the netroots we pride our selfs in being part of the people-powered politics movement but this is the time when we need to step it up and take action on behalf of people-powered politics! In this essay I'll try to give a brief of what happened and how we can take action!
Last Monday I launched the Obamajority to give Barack Obama a strong progressive Congress that will enact his bold agenda. I started it out with three canidates, Rick Noriega, Darcy Burner and Patrick Murphy. I also asked for suggestions for who to endorse next.
The canidate that received the most support by far was Tom Perriello. I had already heard about his impressive run for Congress and so I am exited to announce that Tom is the latest canidate to be added to the Obamajority. So go and give him some change for change. In this essay I take a look at Tom and his campaign to bring much needed leadership to Virgina's 5th Congressional District.
Today Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Barbara Ehrenreich and Danny Glover published aopen letter to American progressives urging them to join them and support Barack Obama. Why? Because Obama's campaign is a movement.
We intend to join and engage with our brothers and sisters in the vast rainbow of social movements to come together in support of Obama's unprecedented campaign and candidacy. Even though it is candidate-centered, there is no doubt that the campaign is a social movement, one greater than the candidate himself ever imagined
I think this is a very important letter and I'll take a deeper look at it in this essay.
There is still a lot more work to do if we want to get Barack Obama elected. But if we want to truly change this country we need to do more then that. We need to build strong Democratic majority in the House and Senate committed to passing Obama's agenda of change. In short we need an Obamajority.
So I e-mailed a few people who had helped out with the Obamathon and came up with the idea for a fundraising drive like the Obamathon but for congressional candidates who will help build a Obamajority. Using the amazing ActBlue we have set up a fundraising page to build The New Obamajority. To start out it features three great candidates. Rick Noriega, Darcy Burner and Patrick Murphy. More will be added as time goes on (suggestions are welcome at obamathon (AT) gmail (DOT) com) but for now let me introduce you to those three great candidates who will help build an Obamajority.
After Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Law School he could have easily gotten a high paying job as a corporate lawyer or clerk for a federal judge. Instead he returned to Chicago to run the Illinois branch of Project Vote!, a national non-profit group dedicated to increasing voter engagement and participation in low-income and minority communities. Obama proceeded to add over 150,000 low-income and minority voters to the voting rolls.
In this essay I want to focus on a article that appeared in the Chicago Magazine in 1993 entitled "Vote of Confidence" and the need for brining more voices into the process so we can help not only elect Barack Obama but fundamentally alter the electoral landscape.
8 weeks ago today in a blog on DailyKos and many other sites I posted a proposal for a Obamathon fundraising drive to help Barack Obama win in the first Super Tuesday (February 5th). Since then 896 people have donated $48,771 dollars via that page and Obama has gone from a underdog to a clear front runner within reach of the nomination.
But there is still work to do to get there. Obama has to run two campaigns at once. He still has to win the Democratic nomination and also he has to run against Senator McCain. He is facing a two front battle. It is still a uphill fight but it can be won.
So I'm relaunching the Obamathon as the Obamathon 2.0 (real original name I know) and setting a new goal of $100,000 by April 22, the day of the next primary.
The Patriot-News is reporting that Lou Thieblemont, mayor of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania and lifelong Republican has switched parties so he can vote for Barack Obama in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary on April 22.
"I'm sick and tired of the politics of fear in this country. He's the only one who doesn't do that," Thieblemont said of Obama. "He's the only candidate who's said he'd talk to our enemies and try to get some common ground."
I think this is quite notable. Why? Because it is part of a trend. Obama has been growing the Democratic Party all over the country by honestly appealing to people's hopes and not relying on fear.
Fear is a effective tool and for too long the Republicans have been able to exploit it for political gain. But this time people are saying "Enough!"
All around the country people have had enough of the politics of fear. Fear doesn't help the economy. Fear won't bring our troops home. Fear won't get anyone health care. Fear won't get anyone a better education
Fear has never done anything but elect bad leaders.
No matter what the end result of this campaign is I think it is clear that Barack Obama's campaign will have transformed the way political campaigning is done forever. Obama has done this by combining the internet organizing revolutionized by Joe Trippi the Howard Dean campaign and the community organizing tactics of Saul Alinsky that he learned on the South Side of Chicago.
The latest cover story of the Rolling Stone magazine covers this phenomena. In this essay I am going to examine that article, The Machinery of Hope.
This will be fairly short but I don't see this anywhere. But ACORN PAC has endorsed Obama. What is ACORN?
ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, with over 350,000 member families organized into 800 neighborhood chapters in 104 cities across the country. Since 1970 ACORN has taken action and won victories on issues of concern to its members, including better housing for first time homebuyers and tenants, living wages for low-wage workers, more investment in our communities from banks and governments, and better public schools.
On all the fights. Katrina, Living Wage, Predatory lending, Education and Affordable housing just to name a few, ACORN has been on the front lines fighting for change.
David Sirota has a very interesting article in the February edition of In These Times. It is also available for viewing online.
While I don't agree with everything he says in it I think it is a good point to bring up and a fascinating article. In it he talks about why "Empowering Capitol Hill progressives is just as important as presidental campaign platforms."
It is a good start to the broader discussion of what the end results of each canidate would be. A discussion that should not only include congress and platforms but also electoral coattails and working style among other things. But those will have to later. In this essay I will just be focusing on the arguments Sirota makes.
