paying-attention

I switched this over from Nuanced Faith because I felt I was getting a little too political (over there) and a little too negative (over here.) It is still my favorite Obama photo so far.

Labels: Barack Obama, Iowa State Fair, Sasha

I belong to a lot of different interest groups. I'm Catholic, and I subscribe to a few (mostly but not all liberal) Catholic magazines, newsletters and listserves. Then again, I subscribe to some Jewish news sources, partly for the joy of Torah study. I am registered a Republican, so my party sends me information about the dastardly doings of the Democrats. Then again, I've volunteered for and donated money to Democratic and Green candidates, so I'm on their mailing list as well.

I receive literacy activities from various education sources, and science activities from NOAA. I think it is my New Yorker subscription that gets me the pitches for expensive watches and luxury vacations. Years ago, I had a friend who put a different middle initial on all his subscriptions just to see which ones were associated with what additional mail. And then there are the catalogues....

All this goes part of the way toward explaining two emails I received today and yesterday.

Labels: Barack Obama, Haaretz, political advertising, Republican Jewish Coalition

Labels: Barack Obama, moderate voters

This week the Huffington Post has dueling op-eds from the Goldwater family. First, granddaughter CC Goldwater weighed in with why her grandfather, an old-fashioned libertarian-style conservative, would be unlikely to vote for Republican John McCain this year.

Then, today, Barry Goldwater, Jr. (CC's uncle) had his say in a piece titled "Why Barry Goldwater Couldn't Support Obama." I was going to post a comment on the Huffington Post site, but they keep losing my login. So here is what I think, based on the two Goldwater columns:

If Barry Goldwater, Sr., was alive today, I would like to think that he would be among the people who had been keeping the GOP from becoming the hyper-partisan, religious right, borrow and spend smear machine that it has become in the past twenty years. I would like to think that the small government ideals espoused by Ron Paul would still get respect from the mainstream of the party. I would like to think that John McCain would have been elected president eight years ago, retaining his own deeply held views on personal freedom and national defense, instead of being forced into this total sell-out that he has gone through in the last four years.

This year it has been tough to remember, but I started out as a Republican myself. Actually, my first registration was as a Socialist Worker but that was because there were some really attractive men in the SWP. We all have sins to answer for in our youth.

I was never a Democrat, and I'm still not. As far as I know, being a Republican does not mean I'm required to vote for whatever people or policies that the current party bigwigs choose to impose. I think that was what CC Goldwater was trying to say. If I order a green shirt on the internet and they send me a black one, I'll send it back for a refund. That doesn't mean I'm rejecting the color green. If I am in favor of small government and personal privacy and my GOP government sends me bedroom monitors and the Patriot Act, I'm not picking up that tab either.

I was interested to see what CC's uncle had to say about the current GOP candidates and why we should choose them over Obama and Biden. As far as I could tell, he was telling me to wear the black shirt in support of party unity. Party unity? They threw people like me out years ago. Meanwhile, the Democratic store over there is selling some pretty nice green clothes.

Labels: Barack Obama, Barry Goldwater, CC Goldwater, John McCain, The Huffington Post

Labels: Barack Obama, democrats, republicans, voters

This year's presidential election will not be decided by negative campaigning. For the first time in years, Americans have a choice of two positives. If McCain wins, it will be because people trust him and want the kind of governance he stands for. If Obama wins, it will be because people trust him and want the kind of governance he stands for.

The McCain campaign and the Republicans in general have plenty of material -- much of it spurious -- to aim against Obama. I hope they realize that this year that isn't the path to victory. (As an Obama supporter I'm not hoping too hard.)

The Democrats, even in the Obama campaign, seem to be relying on an even more dangerous mantra: "A vote for McCain is a vote for a third Bush term." Really? They really can't see the difference between McCain and Bush? No matter how energetically McCain panders to the so-called Republican base, he will never resemble George W. Bush.

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait is on to the problem. He writes,

" ....even though Democrats are extremely enthusiastic about Barack Obama, that life-and-death quality is absent. I think the reason is that a lot of liberals kind of like John McCain. I know I do.

Eight years ago, I was a hard-core liberal McCainiac. Here was a Republican saying things no other Republican would say and fighting, Teddy Roosevelt-style, to wrest his party from the hands of the plutocrats who controlled it. And, in the years immediately following that run, McCain established himself as perhaps the country's foremost progressive champion. He was an opponent, on moral and fiscal grounds, of tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the rich. He was also a fierce opponent of the extreme elements of the religious right. He was a proponent of global-warming legislation, the Law of the Sea Treaty, a moderate immigration bill, expanded public financing of elections, a tobacco tax, and many other liberal reforms....

....Where Bush is peevish, entitled, and insecure, McCain's charming, ironic, and self-deprecating. Bush's path to public life was trading on his father's name to run a series of business ventures into the ground before being handed a baseball team. McCain's was an episode of awe-inspiring perseverance...."

We should celebrate the fact that each party seems to have chosen its most original thinker, and best listener, as its candidate for president. Whichever way this election goes -- and I'm confident that Obama is our next president -- Bush will be history.

Labels: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, John McCain