[Good Read] Barack Obama: The End Of Small Politics

No Worries · Jun 19, 2006

Barack Obama: The End Of Small Politics
By Barack Obama, AlterNet. Posted June 19, 2006.

In an impassioned speech, the Illinois senator explains Bush's ongoing failures, why the 'ownership society' doesn't work, and why we must -- somehow -- hold on to hope.

We meet at a time where we find ourselves at a crossroads in American history. It's a time where you can go into any town hall or veterans' hall or coffee shop or street corner and you'll hear people express the same anxiety about the future. You'll hear them convey the same uncertainty about the direction that we're headed as a country. Whether it's the war or Katrina or health care or outsourcing, you'll hear people say that, now, surely we've come to a moment where things have to change. And there are Americans who still believe in an America where anything's possible; they're just not sure that their leaders still do. They still believe in dreaming big dreams but they suspect maybe that their leaders have forgotten how.

I remember when I first ran for the state senate -- this was my very first race -- back in Chicago ... people would say, you seem like a nice young man. They would look over my literature. They would say, you have a fancy law degree, you teach at a fine law school, you've done fine work, you've got a beautiful family -- why would you want to go into something dirty and nasty like politics? Why would you want to go into politics?

And the question is understandable and it bears on today because even those of us who are involved, even those of us who are active in the political process and in civic life, there are times where all of us feel discouraged sometimes, where we get cynical about the prospects for politics because it seems as if sometimes that politics is treated as a business and not a mission, and that power is always trumping principle, and that we have leaders that are sometimes long on rhetoric but short on substance, and so we get discouraged. And every two years or fours years maybe we do our bit and we knock on doors or pass our literature, or we go into the polling place and hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils, but we don't feel in our gut sometimes that politics and government is going to improve our lives. At most, we hope it does us no harm.

And I am not immune to those feelings. But, you know, when I get in that funk, I think about a person I met the day before I was elected to the United States Senate ...[M]y staff comes up to me and says, senator, before you go up, there's this woman who wants to meet you. And she's driven a long way and she's a big supporter and she just wants to take a picture with you and shake your hand. And I say, well, that's not a problem. And so I go offstage to a back room and I meet this woman. She explains that she has supported me since I announced my race. She shakes my hand, we take a picture, she tells me that she's proud of me. And she had already cast her ballot at that point absentee, and she was really appreciative of the work that I was doing and wished me Godspeed.

And none of this would have been exceptional except for the fact that this woman, named Marguerite Lewis, had been born in Louisiana in 1899 and was 105 years old. And so ever since I met this frail 105-year-old African American woman who found the strength to leave her house and come to a rally because she believed that her voice mattered, I've thought about all that she's seen in her life.

I thought about the fact that she was born at a time when there were no cars on the road and there were no airplanes in the sky; born in the wake of slavery, in the shadow of Jim Crow, a time when it was far more frequent for African Americans to be lynched than to vote. I thought about how she lived through a world war and a Great Depression and another world war. And then she saw her brothers, her uncles, her cousins coming back from that second war and still have to sit at the back of the bus. And I thought about how she finally saw women win the right to vote. And how she watched FDR lift millions out of fear and send millions to college on the GI Bill and bring folks out of poverty, and how she saw unions rise up and give them a foothold into the middle class. And she saw millions of immigrants travel from distant shores in search of this idea that we call America.

And she believed in this idea of America, despite the cards that she had been dealt. She believed in this notion of a more perfect union. And when she saw, in the distance, breaking out the civil rights movement over the horizon, she thought, well, maybe it's my turn now. And she saw women who were willing to walk instead of ride the bus after a long day of doing someone else's laundry or looking after somebody else's children because they were walking for their freedom. And she saw people of every race and creed -- young people get on buses and travel down to Mississippi and Alabama to register voters. And she saw four little girls die needlessly in Sunday school and saw how it catalyzed a nation. And at last she saw the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. And she saw people lining up to vote for the first time and she got in that line and she never forgot it. And she kept on voting in each and every election because she believed.

She had seen enough over the span of three centuries to know that there's no challenge that is too great or no injustice too crippling or no destiny that is too far out of reach for America when it puts its mind to it. She believed that we don't have to settle for equality for some or opportunity for the lucky or freedom for the few. And she knew that during these moments in history there have always been people who have been willing to settle for less, but they've been counteracted by people who've said, no, we're going to keep on dreaming and we're going to keep on building and we're going to keep on marching and we're going to keep on working because that's who we are, because we've always fought to bring more and more people under the blanket of the American dream.

And I think we face one of those moments today in a century that is just six years old. Our faith has been shaken by war and terror and disaster and despair and threats to the middle-class dream and scandal and corruption in our government. The sweeping changes brought by revolutions and technology have torn down the walls between business and government and people and places all over the globe. And with this new world comes new risks and new dangers. The days are over where we can assume that a high school education is enough to compete with for a job that could just as easily go to a college educated student in Beijing or Bangalore. No more can we count on employers to provide health care and pensions and job training when their bottom lines know no borders. We can't expect oceans that surround America to keep us safe from attacks from our own soil.

But while the world has changed around us, unfortunately it seems like our government has stood still. Our faith has been shaken, but the people running Washington haven't been willing to make us believe again. Now, it's the timidity, it's the smallness of our politics that's holding us back right now -- the idea that there are some problems that are just too big to handle, and if you just ignore them that sooner or later they'll go away, so that if you talk about the statistics on the stock market being up or orders for durable goods being on the rise, that nobody's going to notice the single mom who's working two jobs and still doesn't have enough money at the end of the month to pay the bills. That if you say "plan for victory" often enough and have it pasted -- the words behind you when you make a speech, that nobody's going to notice the bombings in Baghdad or the 2,500 flag-draped coffins that have arrived at Dover Air force Base. The fact is we notice, we care, and we're not going to settle for less anymore. ...

I don't think that - I think George Bush loves this country. I really do. I don't think his administration is "full" of stupid people. ... The problem is not that the philosophy of this administration is not working the way it's supposed to work; the problem is that it is working the way it's supposed to work. They don't believe -- they don't believe that government has a role in solving national problems because they think government is the problem. They think that we're better off if we just dismantle government; if, in the form of tax breaks, we make sure that everybody's responsible for buying your own health care and your own retirement security and your own child care and your own schools, your own private security forces, your own roads, your own levees.

It is called the "ownership society" in Washington. But, you know, historically there has been another term for it; it's called "social Darwinism" -- the notion that every man or woman is out for him or her self, which allows us to say that if we meet a guy who has worked in a steel plant for 30, 40 years and suddenly has the rug pulled out from under him and can't afford health care or can't afford a pension, you know, life isn't fair. It allows us to say to a child who doesn't have the wisdom to choose his or her own parents and so lives in a poor neighborhood, pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. It allows us to say to somebody who is seeing their child sick and is going bankrupt paying the bills, tough luck.

It's a bracing idea, this idea that you're on your own. It's the simplest thing in the world, easy to put on a bumper sticker. But there's just one problem; it doesn't work. It ignores our history. Now, yes, our greatness as a nation has depended on self-reliance and individual initiative and a belief in the free market, but it's also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, our sense that we have a stake in each other's success -- that everybody should have a shot at opportunity.

Americans understand this. They know the government can't solve all their problems, but they expect the government can help because they know it's an expression of what they're learning in Sunday school. What they learn in their church, in their synagogue, in their mosque - a basic moral precept that says that I have to look out for you and I have responsibility for you and you have responsibility for me, that I am your keeper and you are mine. That's what America is.

And so I am eager to have this argument with the Republican Party about the core philosophy of America, about what our story is. We shouldn't shy away from that debate. The time for our identity crisis as progressives is over. Don't let anybody tell you that we don't know what we stand for. Don't doubt yourselves. We know who we are. And in the end we know that it's not enough just to say that we've had enough. We've got a story to tell that isn't just against something but is for something. We know that we're the party of opportunity. We know that in a global economy that's more connective and more competitive that we're the party that will guarantee every American an affordable, world-class, life-long, top-notch education, from early childhood to high school - from college to on-the-job training. We know that that's what we're about.

We know we're the party - we know that as progressives we believe in affordable health care for all Americans - and that we're going to make sure that Americans don't have to choose between a health care plan that bankrupts the government and one that bankrupts families, the party that won't just throw a few tax breaks at families who can't afford their insurance, but will modernize our health care system and give every family a chance to buy insurance at a price they can afford.

Progressives are the folks who believe in energy independence for America, that we're not bought and paid for by the oil companies in this country. We believe that we can harness homegrown alternative fuels and spur the production of fuel-efficient hybrid cars, and break our dependence on the world's most dangerous regions. We understand that we get a three-for: We can save our economy, our environment, and stop funding both sides of the war on terror if we actually get serious about doing something about energy.

We understand that.

We understand, as progressives, that we need a tough foreign policy, but we know the other side has a monopoly on the tough-and-dumb strategy; we're looking for the tough-and-smart strategy - one that battles the forces of terrorism and fundamentalism but understands that it's not just a matter of military might alone, that we've got to match it with the power of our diplomacy and the strength of our alliances and the power of our ideals, and that when we do go to war, we should be honest with the American people about why we're there and how we expect to win.

We understand as progressives that we believe in open and honest government that doesn't peddle the agenda of whichever lobbyist or special interest can write the biggest check. And if we believe in all these things, and if we act on it, then I guarantee you America is looking for us to lead. And if we do it, it's not going to be a Democratic agenda or a liberal agenda or a progressive agenda; it's going to be an American agenda because in the end we may be proud progressives but we're prouder Americans.

We're tired of being divided. We are tired of running into ideological walls and partisan roadblocks. We're tired of appeals to our worst instincts and our greatest fears. So I say this to you guys, that America is desperate for leadership. I absolutely feel it everywhere I go. They are longing for direction and they want to believe again.

Barack Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois.

MadMax · Jun 19, 2006

This message is likely going to be VERY appealling to people right now.

losttexan · Jun 19, 2006

Great Read!

GladiatoRowdy · Jun 19, 2006

Wow. Just wow.

Saint Louis · Jun 19, 2006

It's about damn time.

Master Baiter · Jun 19, 2006

If only we had 534 just like that.

FranchiseBlade · Jun 19, 2006

This guy continues to hit home runs. Absolutely great stuff. I remember before I had really heard of him, or was just starting to, and Sam Fisher spoke highly of him.

Barak Obama should be a big player. I wish he would take the reins now. The more him and folks like him can steer this nation, the better off we will all be.

TracyMcCrazyeye · Jun 19, 2006

good points

Deckard · Jun 19, 2006

This is a good place to post an article I read yesterday about Obama. Looks like he's seriously considering a run in '08, which would be outstanding.

Obama's Profile Has Democrats Taking Notice
Popular Senator Is Mentioned as 2008 Contender

By Charles Babington

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 18, 2006; A01

EAST ORANGE, N.J. -- Barack Obama was standing before a packed high school auditorium when he noticed a familiar face in the crowd -- none other than singer Dionne Warwick. He paused, flashed a mischievous smile, then let loose with a perfectly on-key performance of the opening line of her hit song "Walk On By."

The audience of 300 students and adults roared with approval.

Obama, a first-term Democratic senator from Illinois, seems to be hitting the right notes these days. During Senate recesses, he has been touring the country at breakneck pace, basking in the sudden fame of a politician turned pop star. Along the way, he has been drawing crowds and campaign cash from Democrats starved for a fresh face and ready to cheer what Obama touts as "a politics of hope instead of a politics of fear."

His office fields more than 300 requests a week for appearances. One Senate Democrat, curious about Obama's charisma, took notes when watching him perform at a recent political event. State parties report breaking fundraising records when Obama is the speaker.

The money he is bringing in for fellow Democrats is shaping up as an important influence on 2006. And the potential Obama is demonstrating as a political performer -- less than two years after his elevation from the Illinois state legislature -- is prompting some colleagues to urge him to turn his attention to 2008 and a race for the presidency. Obama has made plain he is at least listening.

"I think he is unique," said Illinois's senior senator, Richard J. Durbin (D). "I don't believe there is another candidate I've seen, or an elected official, who really has the appeal that he does." As for the 2008 presidential race, "I said to him, 'Why don't you just kind of move around Iowa and watch what happens?' I know what's going to happen. And I think it's going to rewrite the game plans in a lot of presidential candidates if he makes that decision."

Obama deflects such talk, while not ruling out a presidential candidacy. The speculation is as much a commentary on the state of the party as it is on Obama. The Democrats' most prominent likely contenders -- such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and John F. Kerry (Mass.) -- are figures who have been in the public eye for many years and wear scars from earlier controversies.

At age 44, the former Harvard Law School standout has little baggage. But Obama also has a scant legislative record in the Senate, where some members privately say they view him as drawn to news conferences and speeches more than to the hard details of lawmaking.

He has yet to carve out a distinctive profile on the policy and ideological debates that are central to how Democrats will position themselves in a post-Bush era.

In his stump speech, he offers a standard Democratic criticism of President Bush's tax cuts as favoring the rich, and promotes energy independence with only modest detail about how to achieve it. Nor does he dwell on the Iraq war, assailing the administration's handling of the conflict but not addressing such questions as a timetable for troop withdrawal.

Instead, it is almost entirely Obama's biography, along with his gift for engaging people in large audiences and one-on-one encounters, that is driving interest.

"It's very exciting for him to come here," said Iqua Colson, a public schools administrator who appeared at the event here. Most of the students are African American, as is Colson, and she said they see the Senate's only black member as an appealing role model: "He represents hope, promise, excellence."

Every speech includes a version of people telling him in 2004 that a Hawaiian-born African American with a Kenyan father, Kansan mother and "an unpronounceable name" could never be elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois. Before mostly black audiences, he triggers guffaws by saying people rendered his surname as "Alabama" and "yo mama." He refers to himself as "a black guy" before white audiences, "a brother" before black groups.

Every story ends the same, however. He overcame the odds, he tells the listeners, and so can they.

It is a homily that has left some fellow politicians swooning. "I haven't seen a phenomenon like this, where someone comes in so new and is so dazzling," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a 25-year veteran of Congress. Schumer, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Obama "is more requested than anybody else" in the party's hierarchy for fundraising and campaign appearances on behalf of congressional candidates. "Everyone wants him. He's lightning."

Barely known outside his state until he delivered a widely praised speech at the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston, Obama is scrambling to meet his party's demands.

He starred at a March 30 dinner for Connecticut Democrats that drew more than 1,700 people paying at least $175 each -- the state party's biggest such take in decades. "The Darling of His Party," the next day's Hartford Courant front-page headline said, "Wows the Faithful." A March rally on behalf of a Senate candidate in Vermont drew 2,000 people to a hall with 800 seats. "Organizers underestimated Barack Obama's star power," said the next day's Burlington Free Press.

Invitations he has turned down included a chance to be Stanford University's commencement speaker, because he tries to spend Sundays at home in Chicago with his wife, Michelle, and their two young daughters.

Interviewed recently as he jetted between campaign appearances for Democrats in Massachusetts and New Jersey, Obama said he is flattered but so far unmoved by appeals that he seek the presidency in 2008: "It's gratifying to know that my message resonates enough that people are thinking in those terms. But at this stage, I haven't changed my mind from previous demurrals."

Obama, however, is not exactly standing still. He recently hired two nationally experienced political consultants, Anita Dunn in Washington and David Axelrod in Chicago. The senator suggested that a presidential bid is a matter of when, not if.

"We've visited 25 states since taking office," he said. "And in each of those states, we might have 2,000 people show up at a rally. And we'd get back to D.C. and we'd realize we didn't have e-mail addresses for any of those people. That might be a useful thing to have when, you know, I'm running for something and might be looking to raise some money."

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who lauded Obama's political and legislative skills, said he must think about what timing is best for him. "It is unfair to him to heap too much praise on him, because he's so new here," he said. "He's kind of like an all-star baseball player who comes right out of high school or college and has a major impact in that first season. And always the question is, 'Can he sustain it? Will he get burned out?' "

Obama said he wishes reporters and others would pay more attention to his work that helped Illinois veterans receive larger disability benefits, and his legislation encouraging alternative fuels. But he said he understands that "there's a certain story line that attaches to each celebrity. . . . My story line is: 'Rising star comes to D.C. and how quickly will D.C. corrupt him?' "

He praised Clinton's approach to Congress and prominence. "One of the things that both Hillary and I recognize is that we are conferred a huge advantage by virtue of our notoriety," he said. "We don't really have to chase the cameras."

For now, most of his Democratic colleagues believe that Obama's advancement only benefits them. In East Orange, Obama made three stops on behalf of Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), including at a fundraiser that brought in $500,000.

Menendez, who has won seven U.S. House races, later confided, "I took some notes on his interactions."

Onstage, Obama carries audiences along with self-deprecating jokes and gently rhythmic riffs that accent his main points. With a comic's timing, he gets big laughs describing how he reacted when friends first urged him to run for the Illinois Senate. "I prayed on it," he says, pausing briefly. "And I asked my wife." He adds that "those higher authorities" gave their assent.

Perhaps because he has been a national figure for so short a time, there's little of the air of self-importance that surrounds many senators. Staffers generally refer to him as "Barack" rather than "the senator," and they don't snap to attention, as some aides do, when the boss suddenly appears.

Offstage, his matter-of-fact demeanor rarely changed in two busy days of travel. As the plane was about to lift off in overcast skies, he nonchalantly discussed the weather-related crashes that killed Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan and Minnesota Sen. Paul D. Wellstone on campaign trips. An Obama staff member and a reporter later acknowledged that they found the conversation a bit unsettling.

Stylistically, Obama conveys a "sense of authenticity, which I think is the silver coin of the time in terms of leadership," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). In the Senate, he credited the freshman with persuading Republicans to accept a controversial provision on wages in the hard-fought immigration bill.

What Kennedy viewed as a coup, however, was seen as showy overreaching by some Republicans. They complained that in private negotiations Obama seemed more interested in his pet amendments than in the need for an overarching, filibuster-proof compromise.

Such reproaches are bound to increase with Obama's visibility, and the potential danger of moving too far, too fast "is certainly something that I think he thinks about," Kennedy said. "On the other hand, there is enormous thirst within the Democratic Party, within the country, to have new directions, new solutions, new ideas." Kennedy said he doesn't know Obama well enough to counsel him on whether to run in 2008.

But some grass-roots Democrats are ready. "I think he's spectacular," said ophthalmologist David Victor after hearing Obama speak at a Boston rally. "Barack Obama represents the heart and soul of the party, the real future of the party."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700736.html

Keep D&D Civil.

Rockets2K · Jun 19, 2006

Deckard said:

This is a good place to post an article I read yesterday about Obama. Looks like he's seriously considering a run in '08, which would be outstanding.

[/B]
Click to expand...

IF he actually stands up for what he claims to....I'd be all over that.

Obma sounds very very smart...and level headed.
While I dont necessarily totally agree with everything Ive read from him....our differences(mainly on social welfare issues) are not worth worrying over considering the big picture.

on top of that...wouldnt it drive the radical righties absolutely batsh!t to get beat by a man who is not only a democrat....but black also??

Unless something comes out to make him less attractive...I could see myself voting for Obama in 08 easily.

No Worries · Jun 19, 2006

Charisma wins. Obama has got it.

FranchiseBlade · Jun 19, 2006

From what I see is the Dems best chance to win in 2008. I know he is new, but I don't think that is all that much of a factor. He is a good bet to derail the Hillary train, which needs to be derailed ASAP.

I also think he would do well in the general election. I think there are party insiders telling him to wait and get some more experience, but I don't know that the Dems could afford for him to wait.

I don't believe Hillary can win in the general election, and could further set the Demacratic party back. Feingold who I would love to support may not be able to win in the general election either. A GOP victory would hurt the Democratic party even more, as would a Hillary victory.

I think Obama is closer to a true uniter which is what this country needs.

Deckard · Jun 19, 2006

Rockets2K said:

IF he actually stands up for what he claims to....I'd be all over that.

Obma sounds very very smart...and level headed.
While I dont necessarily totally agree with everything Ive read from him....our differences(mainly on social welfare issues) are not worth worrying over considering the big picture.

on top of that...wouldnt it drive the radical righties absolutely batsh!t to get beat by a man who is not only a democrat....but black also??

Unless something comes out to make him less attractive...I could see myself voting for Obama in 08 easily.
Click to expand...

The man certainly has enough experience if you compare him to Bush, a failure as a businessman, who only made his money from the largess of his father's friends, and was governor of a state that has some of the weakest powers for a governor in the country. Bush was smart enough to let others carry the water and then take credit. You can thank Rove for that. Bush gets "credit" for hiring him.

Keep D&D Civil.

mc mark · Jun 19, 2006

Is there video of the speech?

yes I'm being lazy

nyquil82 · Jun 19, 2006

It's nice to know there are some people in politics who still believe in this country.

Rockets2K · Jun 19, 2006

FranchiseBlade said:

From what I see is the Dems best chance to win in 2008. I know he is new, but I don't think that is all that much of a factor. He is a good bet to derail the Hillary train, which needs to be derailed ASAP.

I also think he would do well in the general election. I think there are party insiders telling him to wait and get some more experience, but I don't know that the Dems could afford for him to wait.

I don't believe Hillary can win in the general election, and could further set the Demacratic party back. Feingold who I would love to support may not be able to win in the general election either. A GOP victory would hurt the Democratic party even more, as would a Hillary victory.

I think Obama is closer to a true uniter which is what this country needs.
Click to expand...

There may be some who say he doesnt have the experience to run for the POTUS, but I dont see that as a problem.....that just means he has less ties inside the Beltway than any of the other possible candidates....which cant be a bad thing.

I agree Hillary needs to just give it up already...she will never be able to get the support she needs to win...even now with lots of folks getting turned off by the Repubs...folks want anyone other than who is running the asylum now, but if the Dem candidate is Ms Clinton...I dont think Dems win in 08.

Dairy Ashford · Jun 19, 2006

FranchiseBlade said:

From what I see is the Dems best chance to win in 2008. I know he is new, but I don't think that is all that much of a factor. He is a good bet to derail the Hillary train, which needs to be derailed ASAP.

I also think he would do well in the general election. I think there are party insiders telling him to wait and get some more experience, but I don't know that the Dems could afford for him to wait.

I don't believe Hillary can win in the general election, and could further set the Demacratic party back. Feingold who I would love to support may not be able to win in the general election either. A GOP victory would hurt the Democratic party even more, as would a Hillary victory.

I think Obama is closer to a true uniter which is what this country needs.
Click to expand...

He should probably be running the DNC, leading Senate Democrats or responding to State of the Union and Weekly Radio Addresses. But I don't know what non-black non-liberals will see in this guy. I think Sharpton and Jackson, as of late, have actually made it a little tough for this guy. Not that he's anything like them (or that Jackson & Sharpton are even similar), but he may be forced, early on, to figure out a way to distance himself from them, and that's slightly complicated by the fact that Jackson Jr is from his state. There won't always be freaks (Jack Ryan) and aliens (Alan Keyes) to run against in every election.

Invisible Fan · Jun 19, 2006

If he can move Congress, then **** experience and put him in.

Ideally, they'd place an established mover like Clinton or even Kerry for VP though those two's egos would put a crimp on it.

That's one helluva article. Hope and charisma are very strong assets in today's state of politics.

ROXRAN · Jun 19, 2006

He voted against a bill that would have banned early release for convicted sexual abusers...A few other aspects, but a good track record. It seems as if he has a strong disdain for the Republican ideology rather than Republican issues..., and I actually think that is a good thing because it shows he has passion which is needed in politics...Still too green, though.

There won't be a rematch...

SamFisher · Jun 19, 2006

pouhe said:

He should probably be running the DNC, leading Senate Democrats or responding to State of the Union and Weekly Radio Addresses. But I don't know what non-black non-liberals will see in this guy. I think Sharpton and Jackson, as of late, have actually made it a little tough for this guy. Not that he's anything like them (or that Jackson & Sharpton are even similar), but he may be forced, early on, to figure out a way to distance himself from them, and that's slightly complicated by the fact that Jackson Jr is from his state. There won't always be freaks (Jack Ryan) and aliens (Alan Keyes) to run against in every election.
Click to expand...

That is the beauty of his crossover appeal - as a speaker he is at home in front of the ACLU as he is in front of the Future Farmers of America. Anyway he was destroying Ryan in polls well before his campaign imploded.

Forums

[Good Read] Barack Obama: The End Of Small Politics

No Worries Contributing Member

MadMax Contributing Member

losttexan Contributing Member

GladiatoRowdy Contributing Member

Saint Louis Member

Master Baiter Contributing Member

FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
Supporting Member

TracyMcCrazyeye Member

Deckard Blade Runner
Supporting Member

Rockets2K Clutch Crew

No Worries Contributing Member

FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
Supporting Member

Deckard Blade Runner
Supporting Member

mc mark Contributing Member

nyquil82 Contributing Member

Rockets2K Clutch Crew

Dairy Ashford Member

Invisible Fan Contributing Member

ROXRAN Contributing Member

SamFisher Contributing Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!

[Good Read] Barack Obama: The End Of Small Politics

No Worries Contributing Member

MadMax Contributing Member

losttexan Contributing Member

GladiatoRowdy Contributing Member

Saint Louis Member

Master Baiter Contributing Member

FranchiseBlade Contributing Member Supporting Member

TracyMcCrazyeye Member

Deckard Blade Runner Supporting Member

Rockets2K Clutch Crew

No Worries Contributing Member

FranchiseBlade Contributing Member Supporting Member

Deckard Blade Runner Supporting Member

mc mark Contributing Member

nyquil82 Contributing Member

Rockets2K Clutch Crew

Dairy Ashford Member

Invisible Fan Contributing Member

ROXRAN Contributing Member

SamFisher Contributing Member

Share This Page

FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
Supporting Member

Deckard Blade Runner
Supporting Member

FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
Supporting Member

Deckard Blade Runner
Supporting Member