There have been a lot of post-mortems in the wake of the disturbing passage of Proposition 8 in California, which would have upheld the state Supreme Court’s decision in May to allow same-sex marriages. Protesters have taken to the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco voicing their dissent. Some have marched on the steps of the Mormon temples, especially since it’s been revealed that LDS money from Utah helped fund the Yes on 8 campaign throughout the state. Tens of thousands have also taken to signing petitions that seek to overturn the vote.  Other petitions charge that because of its overt involvement in the campaign, the Mormon Church should lose its precious tax exemption status. Read the rest of this entry »

The utterly transformative and historic moment in Chicago’s Grant Park last Tuesday night held millions around the world spellbound. The image of the newly-elected 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and two young daughters waving to the crowds was something many people genuinely thought they’d never see. An African-American first family. A Black man who finally and most decisively achieved whatever this mythical “American dream” represented. A 20-month-old campaign was finally over, and Barack Hussein Obama triumphed, winning not only the popular vote on Tuesday but also the electoral vote by a margin of more than 2 to 1. Obama won in states that had not voted for a Democrat since 1964. The Commonwealth of Virginia, where the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War stood, went for Obama, as did North Carolina. As did Iowa. As did many states. They voted –Americans voted in large numbers for a Black man. Even in a country where racial attitudes still exist, one of the remarkable facts about Tuesday’s election was that Americans put aside those differences and took a proud and measured chance on a new leader and a new hope. Read the rest of this entry »

So you’ve got free donuts and a free scoop of ice cream. Now on November 4, Starbucks wants to reward you voters with a free cup of coffee. Launched last night on “Saturday Night Live”, the commercial, part of the “Shared Planet” campaign, states that everyone who votes will get a cup of Starbucks coffee. Sounds like a deal. Now would you believe there are people who actually have a problem with this? KCBS-TV in Los Angeles apparently has questioned the legality of providing what could be seen as bribes to voters.

There is a California Elections Code, section 18521 (b), which prohibits rewarding people for voting or not voting. Another California companion statute contains similar language, saying the law is meant to prevent people from being bribed with money, food or alcohol. Technically speaking, any violation of the law could get you a prison sentence of 16 months to 3 years. Read the rest of this entry »

Someone forwarded this e-mail to me this morning. It’s probably going around the Internet. Let me share it:

How Racism Clouds Judgment

What if things were switched around?
Think about it. Would the country’s collective point of view be different?
Ponder the following:

• What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

• What if Read the rest of this entry »

In watching last night’s Barack Obama’s 30-minute prime-time TV ad, one couldn’t escape the sense that this was a culmination of sorts. We are now 5 days away from the most important election of our times, and never have I seen such intense interest in a presidential election. Then again never have I seen such an “advertisement”, or “commercial”, that was so seamlessly produced in a way that could capture the nation’s attention so close to an election by such a unique candidate. Should we reproach Obama for the fact that his campaign has the wherewithal to fund this ad and approach the seven TV and cable networks (CBS, NBC, Fox, MSNBC but not ABC or CNN) and say, “Can we buy 30 minutes of air time?”? Is it fair that his campaign, at last count, has now amassed something close to $600 million? If the largesse were McCain’s, don’t you think they would have done the same? It just strikes me that the McCain campaign has been engaging in some childish playground name-calling. They don’t like that this time it’s the Democrats who have clearly outspent them. They don’t like to acknowledge the fact that their candidate has been without a clear and defining message and that, though the race will probably tighten in the waning days, this campaign has been in a freefall. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Brokaw had it right tonight. As Obama and McCain walked onstage in Nashville for their second debate of the campaign, the mood of the country had changed tremendously since their first encounter on September 26. The Dow plunged over 500 points today and the index is closer to 9000 than 10,000; people are concerned about the economy in ways that they haven’t since the Great Depression and voters especially are anxious for answers out of these somewhat desperate times. As a result, there was a somber feel to this evening’s affair given the crisis; a distinct pallor or dark cloud seemed to hang over the heads of the two candidates. Read the rest of this entry »

The first Presidential debate of the election season between Barack Obama and John McCain at Ole Miss was a mostly sobering, understated affair. No one tossed any pounding blows. No one came away with any killer lines. There was, I think, a fairly decisive victor but it wasn’t necessarily because of debating skill or technique. This was to be a battle between the 72-year-old McCain and the much younger upstart Obama, the former clearly one with experience in the Senate dealing with the evening’s theme, foreign policy and national security. Obama, by contrast, had to be seen as the distinct challenger and there is evidence that his poll leads have not been as high because voters have taken his relative lack of experience to heart. McCain clearly tried to expose this vulnerability as much as possible. But Obama was able to hold his own against the senior senator.

Some highlights (and lowlights): Read the rest of this entry »

With about 60 days to go before the general election, the US Presidential race is officially on.

We have the prospect of history before us. We will elect either the first Black President or else the first female Vice President. Attention to the race is heightened after two straight weeks of political conventions, high profile appearances and speeches.

According to the TV bean counters, ratings for John McCain and Sarah Palin’s speeches matched or even exceeded those of Barack Obama and Joe Biden the week before. 40 million viewers in prime time. That’s more than the audience for the David Cook/Little David Archuleta showdown on American Idol in May, and more than those who witnessed Daniel Day-Lewis cop an Oscar in February. America, not only are you really into this election, but you have made these people very famous.

And that’s a major thing here: recognition. For a lot of people who may know Read the rest of this entry »

Morning news anchors are tripping over themselves trying to figure out who is going to be John McCain’s VP pick. This on the day after Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. What should be a day after to go through highlights from that speech and provide some post-election afterglow instead becomes a masterfully calculated announcement from the McCain folks to drive the news cycle today.

Breaking news at 7:39 am PDT: Matt Lauer of NBC News and Today announced that McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. The 44-year old staunch conservative and mother of five, has been in office for two years. Chuck Todd of NBC News said just an hour ago that three years ago, she was just a mayor of a small town in Alaska. This morning she will appear in Dayton, OH with McCain at a rally designed, as only the GOP can muster, to present what is a rather bold and shrewd choice for the Arizona Senator and his campaign. Read the rest of this entry »

Fundrace 2008

Care to know if your well-off stepmother is playing a blue or red card? Has your office mate led you astray by donating to the “other” side? Want to know at which party your favorite celeb has thrown millions?

Find out by using this fully interactive Fundrace 2008 map detailing campaign contributions and their sources.

Drag the map to find the hotspot of your choice, and then click to find the juicy details.  You can search Fundrace by name, address, zip code, occupation or employer.

Interesting sidenote: Barack Obama donated $4,600 to Hillary Clinton, then Hillary donated half this amount ($2,300) to Barack.

Wow, this can become addictive.

[Via The Huffington Post]

I did not get my text message –until 1:04 am PST. After a long day in which CNN and every other news organization was chomping at the bit big time wondering who Barack Obama would select as his vice-presidential running mate, we finally have word that it is Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. That bit of news came courtesy of CNN, and chief Washington correspondent John King at 12:42 am EST –a full three hours earlier–from a well-placed source. It was a bit disappointing that the news had leaked and that it didn’t go to the supporters first via SMS.  Millions of Obama supporters who signed up for this bit of news was significant because it symbolized the Obama campaign’s taking this to the people first and notifying them before anyone else.

My cellphone buzzed at this ungodly hour while I was already sleeping. I knew what it was, and I didn’t bother getting up to read the SMS. I knew who Obama had chosen, and in fact, I had just switched off the TV with a bleary-eyed Larry King with the same talking heads that he had on six hours earlier. Honestly, CNN had been apoplectic and snappy all day long, promising that “at any minute now” they would tell us who the VP pick would be. That meant that all of the newscasts featured mostly speculation, but also updates from the also-rans like Tim Keane and Evan Bayh, who sent word that Obama had called them to say they would not be the choice. How do I know all this? I had CNN on virtually all day too, thinking too that they would have the answer first, even though I tried to convince myself that my cellphone would go off first. I was wrong. I was misled. But OK, let’s get on with this. Read the rest of this entry »

John Edwards’ announcement of a sexual affair with a campaign staffer on Friday is a whopper on a few levels. The former Senator from North Carolina, running mate of John Kerry in 2004, and more recently, populist Democratic candidate for President, deemed Friday to be a good day to bury this story amid all the Beijing Olympics hoopla. The hope, perhaps: get the story out quickly, make a brief “official” statement and hope few will notice. Yet this story is all the more significant for what it says about the betrayal of Edwards’ family and supporters while at the same time raising questions about how the mainstream media dropped the ball entirely.

The story is sordid, but not unfamiliar. A dapper, handsome politician finds carnal comfort with a younger woman and Read the rest of this entry »

Eager to post missteps or flub-ups designed to embarrass the Obama campaign each day on his gossipy website, Matt Drudge of the Drudgereport managed to find a doozy yesterday. Apparently, rapper Ludacris, aka Chris Bridges, has released a new song called “Politics: Obama is Here”. It’s, not something the Obama people will be happy about, and this despite the fact that their man revealed once in an interview that Ludacris, one of his favorite rappers, was also on heavy rotation on his iPod. Take a quick listen to this uplifting, inspiring and certain future Grammy Award-winning track and don’t forget to follow along with the deep, socially responsible lyrics:

I’m back on it like I just signed my record deal

Yeah the best is here, the Bentley Coup paint is dripping wet, it got sex appeal

Never should have hated

Never should’ve doubted him Read the rest of this entry »

You would think that after a much-ballyhooed, mostly very successful swing through Afghanistan and Iraq, and a trip through some European capitals last week, Barack Obama would be rising even higher in the polls.

His speech in Berlin, in front of an estimated 200,000 people, was on the front page of every newspaper and on every newscast. The German press, for the most part, applauded the speech and saw in Obama a fresh new departure from what have been troubling years with the current Bush White House.

From the looks of it, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy found a new American friend in Paris, wildly shaking his hand and agreeing to a rare dual news conference after their meeting in the Elysee Palace. (When McCain visited Sarko recently, McCain was left to find his out and search for the cameras.)

In any case, the tour enjoyed extraordinary coverage and Obama himself seemed very pleased with the results of what had been, let’s face it, a very carefully scripted expedition from start to finish. Every single Kodak moment was deliberate and determined; this was a Read the rest of this entry »

You’re much too good to be true, John McCain. Can’t take my eyes off you. I want to hold you so much. No, really I do. Your campaign staff is so clever. They think that by releasing a video of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons intoning this old 60s chestnut (like the chestnut that you are yourself), with clips of big name reporters like Chris Matthews and Lee Cowan of NBC News saying loving things about Obama is a nifty dig at the media. You’re making the point that the media has fallen all over themselves, that they are “in the tank” for him, according to this somehow current expression.

Let’s use this video, cobbled together by your staff that actually does use the “Internets”, and send it out this very week that your opponent is on his World Tour 2008, visiting both Afghanistan and Iraq, plus conferring with our European allies. You actually want to divert this attention away from Obama. You want to steal a little thunder. He’s over there shaking hands with Malaki, and Malaki is actually saying the same things Obama is saying about a withdrawal of troops within 16 months of January 2009. Then Obama is at an elaborately-staged news conference in Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Leibovich’s cover piece in today’s New York Times proves one thing we all knew about John McCain even before he became the presumptive Republican nominee for President: he sucks at public speaking. So worried are his handlers –who are, by the way, new handlers as of this past week due to a shake-up–that they’re trying desperately to make him more camera-friendly. (Or just people-friendly!) They won’t officially confirm that, but they have to be troubled by his less-than-sparkling speaking performances of late. Leibovich describes at length an ambitious new economic proposal of McCain’s, the “Lexington” plan.

Maybe there was something of substance there. Except that in a few separate instances, McCain couldn’t actually pronounce the word Read the rest of this entry »