Based on the relatively little I knew about Bill Richardson, he was sort of my guy at the beginning of the campaign. I still think he's probably a nice fellow, but man, I don't see how his poll numbers are rising. I don't think I've seen him perform well, or even above average, at any event yet, although I admittedly may have missed some meet-'n'-greets on C-SPAN.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/archive/barackobama/ This is a pretty interesting, in-depth look at Barack Obama and what motivates him, circa 1995. What Makes Obama Run? Lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author Barack Obama doesn't need another career. But he's entering politics to get back to his true passion--community organization. By Hank De Zutter December 8, 1995 When Barack Obama returned to Chicago in 1991 after three brilliant years at Harvard Law School, he didn't like what he saw. The former community activist, then 30, had come fresh from a term as president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, a position he was the first African-American to hold. Now he was ready to continue his battle to organize Chicago's black neighborhoods. But the state of the city muted his exuberance. "Upon my return to Chicago," he would write in the epilogue to his recently published memoir, Dreams From My Father, "I would find the signs of decay accelerated throughout the South Side--the neighborhoods shabbier, the children edgier and less restrained, more middle-class families heading out to the suburbs, the jails bursting with glowering youth, my brothers without prospects. All too rarely do I hear people asking just what it is that we've done to make so many children's hearts so hard, or what collectively we might do to right their moral compass--what values we must live by. Instead I see us doing what we've always done--pretending that these children are somehow not our own." Today, after three years of law practice and civic activism, Obama has decided to dive into electoral politics. He is running for the Illinois Senate, he says, because he wants to help create jobs and a decent future for those embittered youth. But when he met with some veteran politicians to tell them of his plans, the only jobs he says they wanted to talk about were theirs and his. Obama got all sorts of advice. Some of it perplexed him; most of it annoyed him. One African-American elected official suggested that Obama change his name, which he'd inherited from his late Kenyan father. Another told him to put a picture of his light-bronze, boyish face on all his campaign materials, "so people don't see your name and think you're some big dark guy." Obama, running to be the Democratic candidate for the 13th District on the south side, was also told--even by fellow progressives--that he might be too independent, that he should strike a few deals to assure his election. Another well-meaning adviser suggested never posing for photos with a glass in his hand--even if he wasn't drinking alcohol. "Now all of this may be good political advice," Obama said, "but it's all so superficial. I am surprised at how many elected officials--even the good ones--spend so much time talking about the mechanics of politics and not matters of substance. They have this poker chip mentality, this overriding interest in retaining their seats or in moving their careers forward, and the business and game of politics, the political horse race, is all they talk about. Even those who are on the same page as me on the issues never seem to want to talk about them. Politics is regarded as little more than a career." Obama doesn't need another career. As a civil rights lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author, he already has no trouble working 12-hour days. He says he is drawn to politics, despite its superficialities, as a means to advance his real passion and calling: community organization. Obama thinks elected officials could do much to overcome the political paralysis of the nation's black communities. He thinks they could lead their communities out of twin culs-de-sac: the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation--which helps a few upwardly mobile blacks to "move up, get rich, and move out"--and the equally impractical politics of black rage and black nationalism--which exhorts but does not organize ordinary folks or create realistic agendas for change. Obama, whose political vision was nurtured by his work in the 80s as an organizer in the far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Gardens, proposes a third alternative. Not new to Chicago--which is the birthplace of community organizing--but unusual in electoral politics, his proposal calls for organizing ordinary citizens into bottom-up democracies that create their own strategies, programs, and campaigns and that forge alliances with other disaffected Americans. Obama thinks elected officials--even a state senator--can play a critical catalytic role in this rebuilding. Obama is certainly not the first candidate to talk about the politics of community empowerment. His views, for instance, are not that different from those of the person he would replace, state senator Alice Palmer, who gave Obama her blessing after deciding to run for the congressional seat vacated by Mel Reynolds. She promised Obama that if she lost--which is what happened on November 28--she wouldn't then run against him to keep her senate seat. What makes Obama different from other progressive politicians is that he doesn't just want to create and support progressive programs; he wants to mobilize the people to create their own. He wants to stand politics on its head, empowering citizens by bringing together the churches and businesses and banks, scornful grandmothers and angry young. Mostly he's running to fill a political and moral vacuum. He says he's tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up--at the speaker's rostrum and from the pulpit--and then allowed to dissipate because there's no agenda, no concrete program for change. While no political opposition to Obama has arisen yet, many have expressed doubts about the practicality of his ambitions. Obama himself says he's not certain that his experimental plunge into electoral politics can produce the kind of community empowerment and economic change he's after. "Three major doubts have been raised," he said. The first is whether in today's political environment--with its emphasis on media and money--a grass-roots movement can even be created. Will people still answer the call of participatory politics? "Second," Obama said, "many believe that the country is too racially polarized to build the kind of multiracial coalitions necessary to bring about massive economic change. "Third, is it possible for those of us working through the Democratic Party to figure out ways to use the political process to create jobs for our communities?" Obama's intriguing candidacy is the latest adventure in a fascinating life chronicled in Dreams From My Father, published this summer by Times Books. In Obama's words, the book is "a boy's search for his father, and through that search a workable meaning for his life as a black American." In the book, which reads more like a novel than a memoir, Obama comes to terms with the legacy of the African father who left his mother and him when he was two, dropped by when he was ten, and died in an auto accident when he was finishing college. While doing so, Obama takes readers on a multicultural odyssey through three continents and several political philosophies. He casts a skeptical if sympathetic eye on white liberalism, black nationalism, integration, separatism, small-scale economic development, and the transient effectiveness of charismatic black political leaders like the late mayor Washington. While Obama credits all these political movements with bringing some progress to middle-class blacks, he believes that none have built enduring institutions and none have halted the unraveling of black America. Obama is the product of a brief early-60s college romance and short-lived marriage between a black African exchange student and a white liberal Kansan who met at the University of Hawaii. His critical boyhood years--from two to ten--were spent neither in white nor black America but in the teeming streets and jungle outskirts of Djakarta. Obama's boyhood experiences in Indonesia--where his mother took him when she married another foreign exchange student--propelled him toward a worldview well beyond his mother's liberalism. "The poverty, the corruption, the constant scramble for security . . . remained all around me and bred a relentless skepticism. My mother's confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn't possess. . . . In a land where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hard-ship . . . she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism." When Obama moved back to his grandparents' home in Hawaii, to attend the prestigious Punahou School, he encountered race and class prejudice that would darken his politics even more. At first embarrassed by his race and African name, he soon bonded with the few other African-American students. He quickly learned that integration was a one-way street, with blacks expected to assimilate into a white world that never gave ground. He participated in bitter bull sessions with his buddies on the theme of "how white folks will do you." Obama, who had to reconcile these sentiments with the loving support he had at home from his white mother and grandparents, dismissed much of his buddies' analysis as "the same sloppy thinking" used by racist whites, but he found the racism of whites to be particularly stubborn and obnoxious. Obama objected when his Punahou basketball coach upbraided the team for losing to "a bunch of ******s." Obama writes that the coach "calmly explained the apparently obvious fact that 'there are black people, and there are ******s. Those guys were ******s.'" "That's just how white folks will do you," Obama writes. "It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserving of their scorn." Obama's politics were tinged with nihilism during his undergraduate years at Occidental College outside Los Angeles. There he played it cool and detached, and began to confuse partying and getting high with rebellion. After he and his buddies joked about the Mexican cleaning woman's forlorn reaction to the mess they'd created at a party, Obama was jolted back to reality by the criticism of a fellow black student, a young Chicago woman. "You think that's funny?" she told him. "That could have been my grandmother, you know. She had to clean up behind people for most of her life." Obama later transferred to Columbia University, where he was shocked by the casual tolerance of whites and blacks alike for the wide disparity between New York City's opulence and ghetto poverty. He graduated from Columbia with a double major in English literature and political science, and a determination to "organize black folks. At the grass roots." He wrote scores of letters looking for the right job, and almost a year later got an offer to come to Chicago. He gave up a job as a financial writer with an international consulting firm and became a $1,000-a-month community organizer. Here in Chicago, Obama worked as lead organizer for the Developing Communities Project, a campaign funded by south-side Catholic churches to counteract the dislocation and massive unemployment caused by the closing and downsizing of southeast Chicago steel plants. From 1984 to '88 Obama built an organization in Roseland and the nearby Altgeld Gardens public housing complex that mobilized hundreds of citizens. Obama says the campaign experienced "modest successes" in winning residents a place at the table where a job-training facility was launched, asbestos and lead paint were negotiated out of the local schools, and community interests were guarded in the development of the area's landfills. Obama left for Harvard in 1988, vowing to return. He excelled at Harvard Law and gave up an almost certain Supreme Court clerkship to come back as promised. Here he met and married his wife, Michelle, a fellow lawyer and activist, joined a law firm headed by Judson Miner, Mayor Washington's corporation counsel, moved into a lakefront condominium in Hyde Park, and launched a busy civic life. He sits on the boards of two foundations with long histories of backing social and political reform, including his own community work--the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation. Recently he was appointed president of the board of the Annenberg Challenge Grant, which will distribute some $50 million in grants to public-school reform efforts. In 1992 Obama took time off to direct Project Vote, the most successful grass-roots voter-registration campaign in recent city history. Credited with helping elect Carol Moseley-Braun to the U.S. Senate, the registration drive, aimed primarily at African-Americans, added an estimated 125,000 voters to the voter rolls--even more than were registered during Harold Washington's mayoral campaigns. "It's a power thing," said the brochures and radio commercials. Obama's work on the south side has won him the friendship and respect of many activists. One of them, Johnnie Owens, left the citywide advocacy group Friends of the Parks to join Obama at the Developing Communities Project. He later replaced Obama as its executive director. "What I liked about Barack immediately is that he brought a certain level of sophistication and intelligence to community work," Owens says. "He had a reasonable, focused approach that I hadn't seen much of. A lot of organizers you meet these days are these self-anointed leaders with this strange, way-out approach and unrealistic, eccentric way of pursuing things from the very beginning. Not Barack. He's not about calling attention to himself. He's concerned with the work. It's as if it's his mission in life, his calling, to work for social justice. "Anyone who knows me knows that I'm one of the most cynical people you want to see, always looking for somebody's angle or personal interest," Owens added. "I've lived in Chicago all my life. I've known some of the most ruthless and biggest bull****ters out there, but I see nothing but integrity in this guy." Jean Rudd, executive director of the Woods Fund, is another person on guard against self-appointed, self-promoting community leaders. She admires not only Obama's intelligence but his honesty. "He is one of the most articulate people I have ever met, but he doesn't use his gift with language to promote himself. He uses it to clarify the difficult job before him and before all of us. He's not a promoter; from the very beginning, he always makes it clear what his difficulties are. His honesty is refreshing." Woods was the first foundation to underwrite Obama's work with DCP. Now that he's on the Woods board, Rudd says, "He is among the most hard-nosed board members in wanting to see results. He wants to see our grants make change happen--not just pay salaries." Another strong supporter of Obama's work--as an organizer, as a lawyer, and now as a candidate--is Madeline Talbott, lead organizer of the feisty ACORN community organization, a group that's a thorn in the side of most elected officials. "I can't repeat what most ACORN members think and say about politicians. But Barack has proven himself among our members. He is committed to organizing, to building a democracy. Above all else, he is a good listener, and we accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer." Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side. Conducting a session in a New Horizons classroom, Obama, tall and thin, looks very much like an Ivy League graduate student. Dressed casually prep, his tie loosened and his top shirt button unfastened, he leads eight black women from the Grand Boulevard community through a discussion of "what folks should know" about who in Chicago has power and why they have it. It's one of his favorite topics, and the class bubbles with suggestions about how "they" got to be high and mighty. "Slow down now. You're going too fast now," says Obama. "I want to break this down. We talk 'they, they, they' but don't take the time to break it down. We don't analyze. Our thinking is sloppy. And to the degree that it is, we're not going to be able to have the impact we could have. We can't afford to go out there blind, hollering and acting the fool, and get to the table and don't know who it is we're talking to--or what we're going to ask them--whether it's someone with real power or just a third-string flak catcher." Later Obama gets to another favorite topic--the lack of collective action among black churches. "All these churches and all these pastors are going it alone. And what do we have? These magnificent palatial churches in the midst of the ruins of some of the most run-down neighborhoods we'll ever see. All pastors go on thinking about how they are going to 'build my church,' without joining with others to try to influence the factors or forces that are destroying the neighborhoods. They start food pantries and community-service programs, but until they come together to build something bigger than an effective church all the community-service programs, all the food pantries they start will barely take care of even a fraction of the community's problems." "In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations." In an interview after the class, Obama again spoke of the need to organize and mobilize the economic power and moral fervor of black churches. He also argued that as a state senator he might help bring this about faster than as a community organizer or civil rights lawyer. "What we need in America, especially in the African-American community, is a moral agenda that is tied to a concrete agenda for building and rebuilding our communities," he said. "We have moved beyond the clarion call stage that was needed during the civil rights movement. Now, like Nelson Mandela in South Africa, we must move into a building stage. We must invest our energy and resources in a massive rebuilding effort and invent new mechanisms to strengthen and hasten this community-building effort. "We have no shortage of moral fervor," said Obama. "We have some wonderful preachers in town--preachers who continue to inspire me--preachers who are magnificent at articulating a vision of the world as it should be. In every church on Sunday in the African-American community we have this moral fervor; we have energy to burn. "But as soon as church lets out, the energy dissipates. We must find ways to channel all this energy into community building. The biggest failure of the civil rights movement was in failing to translate this energy, this moral fervor, into creating lasting institutions and organizational structures." Obama added that as important and inspiring as it was, the Washington administration also let an opportunity go by. "Washington was the best of the classic politicians," Obama said. "He knew his constituency; he truly enjoyed people. That can't be said for a lot of politicians. He was not cynical about democracy and the democratic process--as so many of them are. But he, like all politicians, was primarily interested in maintaining his power and working the levers of power. "He was a classic charismatic leader," Obama said, "and when he died all of that dissipated. This potentially powerful collective spirit that went into supporting him was never translated into clear principles, or into an articulable agenda for community change. "The only principle that came through was 'getting our fair share,' and this runs itself out rather quickly if you don't make it concrete. How do we rebuild our schools? How do we rebuild our communities? How do we create safer streets? What concretely can we do together to achieve these goals? When Harold died, everyone claimed the mantle of his vision and went off in different directions. All that power dissipated. "Now an agenda for getting our fair share is vital. But to work, it can't see voters or communities as consumers, as mere recipients or beneficiaries of this change. It's time for politicians and other leaders to take the next step and to see voters, residents, or citizens as producers of this change. The thrust of our organizing must be on how to make them productive, how to make them employable, how to build our human capital, how to create businesses, institutions, banks, safe public spaces--the whole agenda of creating productive communities. That is where our future lies. "The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger. "The political debate is now so skewed, so limited, so distorted," said Obama. "People are hungry for community; they miss it. They are hungry for change. "What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer," he wondered, "as part teacher and part advocate, one who does not sell voters short but who educates them about the real choices before them? As an elected public official, for instance, I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer. We would come together to form concrete economic development strategies, take advantage of existing laws and structures, and create bridges and bonds within all sectors of the community. We must form grass-root structures that would hold me and other elected officials more accountable for their actions. "The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility. "Now we have to take this same language--these same values that are encouraged within our families--of looking out for one another, of sharing, of sacrificing for each other--and apply them to a larger society. Let's talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more." Obama said he's not at all comfortable with the political game of getting and staying elected, of raising money in backroom deals and manipulating an electable image. "I am also finding people equivocating on their support. I'm talking about progressive politicians who are on the same page with me on the issues but who warn me I may be too independent." Although Obama has built strong relationships with people inside Mayor Daley's administration, he has not asked for their support in his campaign. Nor has he sought the mayor's endorsement. "I want to do this as much as I can from the grass-roots level, raising as much money for the campaign as possible at coffees, connecting directly with voters," said Obama. "But to organize this district I must get known. And this costs money. I admit that in this transitional period, before I'm known in the district, I'm going to have to rely on some contributions from wealthy people--people who like my ideas but who won't attach strings. This is not ideal, but it is a problem encountered by everyone in their first campaign. "Once elected, once I'm known, I won't need that kind of money, just as Harold Washington, once he was elected and known, did not need to raise and spend money to get the black vote." Obama took time off from attending campaign coffees to attend October's Million Man March in Washington, D.C. His experiences there only reinforced his reasons for jumping into politics. "What I saw was a powerful demonstration of an impulse and need for African-American men to come together to recognize each other and affirm our rightful place in the society," he said. "There was a profound sense that African-American men were ready to make a commitment to bring about change in our communities and lives. "But what was lacking among march organizers was a positive agenda, a coherent agenda for change. Without this agenda a lot of this energy is going to dissipate. Just as holding hands and singing 'We shall overcome' is not going to do it, exhorting youth to have pride in their race, give up drugs and crime, is not going to do it if we can't find jobs and futures for the 50 percent of black youth who are unemployed, underemployed, and full of bitterness and rage. "Exhortations are not enough, nor are the notions that we can create a black economy within America that is hermetically sealed from the rest of the economy and seriously tackle the major issues confronting us," Obama said. "Any solution to our unemployment catastrophe must arise from us working creatively within a multicultural, interdependent, and international economy. Any African-Americans who are only talking about racism as a barrier to our success are seriously misled if they don't also come to grips with the larger economic forces that are creating economic insecurity for all workers--whites, Latinos, and Asians. We must deal with the forces that are depressing wages, lopping off people's benefits right and left, and creating an earnings gap between CEOs and the lowest-paid worker that has risen in the last 20 years from a ratio of 10 to 1 to one of better than 100 to 1. "This doesn't suggest that the need to look inward emphasized by the march isn't important, and that these African-American tribal affinities aren't legitimate. These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a 'lock 'em up, take no prisoners' mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress. Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing." "But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build."
My vote would go to Kucinich, because I don't consider 'electability' when I vote. I vote for who I believe is the best candidate with the strongest sense of ethics and a genuine desire to make the United States and the world a better place. In my humble opinion, if everybody voted like that, we'd have better presidents. That said, I'll never get a chance to vote for Kucinich (or probably any other candidate I like) because he'll be long gone by the time the primaries hit Texas. By the time we hit the primaries in Texas it'll probably be between Clinton, Obama and Edwards. And if I'm lucky Bill Richardson will still be in the race.
Not sure how I feel about this. Count me still in the skeptical camp. -------------- Hillary Locks Up The Backing Of The DC Democratic Establishment Washington--From the K Street lobbyist corridor to the major gay and lesbian organizations to the city's kingpin consultants and fundraisers to the big feminist groups, Hillary Clinton has acquired a near-lock on the Democratic establishment in the nation's capital. The level of support here for the junior New York Senator approaches what an incumbent president seeking re-election might expect. The people and organizations run the gamut: Togo West, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs and CEO of The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the nation's premier black think tank; Elizabeth Bagley, former US Ambassador to Portugal whose Georgetown home has been the gathering place for countless fundraisers; Elizabeth Birch, former head of the Human Rights Campaign, and her partner, former top recording industry lobbyist Hilary Rosen and, of course, former DNC chair and money-man extraordinaire Terry McAuliffe. Those names only touch the surface of Clinton's support among the Democratic establishment. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/23/hillary-locks-up-the-back_n_61603.html
Hilary's biggest supporters live here? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118826947048110677.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news Big Source of Clinton's Cash Is an Unlikely Address Family's Donations Closely Track Those Of Top Fund-Raiser By BRODY MULLINS August 28, 2007; Page A3 DALY CITY, Calif. -- One of the biggest sources of political donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton is a tiny, lime-green bungalow that lies under the flight path from San Francisco International Airport. Six members of the Paw family, each listing the house at 41 Shelbourne Ave. as their residence, have donated a combined $45,000 to the Democratic senator from New York since 2005, for her presidential campaign, her Senate re-election last year and her political action committee. In all, the six Paws have donated a total of $200,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005, election records show. That total ranks the house with residences in Greenwich, Conn., and Manhattan's Upper East Side among the top addresses to donate to the Democratic presidential front-runner over the past two years, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of donations listed with the Federal Election Commission. It isn't obvious how the Paw family is able to afford such political largess. Records show they own a gift shop and live in a 1,280-square-foot house that they recently refinanced for $270,000. William Paw, the 64-year-old head of the household, is a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service who earns about $49,000 a year, according to a union representative. Alice Paw, also 64, is a homemaker. The couple's grown children have jobs ranging from account manager at a software company to "attendance liaison" at a local public high school. One is listed on campaign records as an executive at a mutual fund. The Paws' political donations closely track donations made by Norman Hsu, a wealthy New York businessman in the apparel industry who once listed the Paw home as his address, according to public records. Mr. Hsu is one of the top fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. He has hosted or co-hosted some of her most prominent money-raising events People who answered the phone and the door at the Paws' residence declined requests for comment last week. In an email last night, one of the Paws' sons, Winkle, said he had sometimes been asked by Mr. Hsu to make contributions, and sometimes he himself had asked family members to donate. But he added: "I have been fortunate in my investments and all of my contributions have been my money." Mr. Hsu, in an email last night wrote: "I have NEVER asked a single favor from any politician or any charity group. If I am NOT asking favors, why do I have to cheat...I've asked friends and colleagues of mine to give money out of their own pockets and sometimes they have agreed." Lawrence Barcella, a Washington attorney representing Mr. Hsu, said in a separate email: "You are barking up the wrong tree. There is no factual support for this story and if Mr. Hsu's name was Smith or Jones, I don't believe it would be a story." He didn't elaborate. A Clinton campaign spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said in an email: "Norman Hsu is a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic party and its candidates, including Senator Clinton. During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question." Kent Cooper, a former disclosure official with the Federal Election Commission, said the two-year pattern of donations justifies a probe of possible violations of campaign-finance law, which forbid one person from reimbursing another to make contributions. "There are red lights all over this one," Mr. Cooper said. There is no public record or indication Mr. Hsu reimbursed the Paw family for their political contributions. For the 2008 election, individuals can donate a maximum of $4,600 per candidate -- $2,300 for a primary election and $2,300 for a general election -- and a total of $108,200 per election to all federal candidates and national political parties. In the wake of a 2002 law that set those limits, federal and state regulators and law-enforcement officials said they have seen a spike recently in the number of cases of individuals and companies illegally reimbursing others for campaign donations. Those cases don't necessarily implicate the candidates, who sometimes don't even appear to be aware of such payments executed on their behalf. The 2002 law also raised penalties for infractions and included the prospect of prison sentences for offenders for the first time. That increased incentives for the FEC and federal prosecutors to investigate and prosecute infractions. Since the law was enacted, the FEC has collected millions of dollars in fines for illegal donations, including its largest-ever penalty, a $3.8 million levy against Freddie Mac last year. According to public documents, Mr. Hsu once listed his address at the Paw home in Daly City, though it isn't clear if he ever lived there. He now lives in New York, according to campaign-finance records, on which he also lists a half-dozen apparel companies as his employer. In the campaign-finance forms, Mr. Hsu lists his companies as Next Components, Dilini Management, Because Men's Clothes and others. He is on the board of directors of the New School in New York. News stories in the mid-1980s said he criticized trade policies that made it harder to import goods from China. Mr. Hsu is also a major fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton and other Democrats. When Democrats won control of Congress in November, he threw a party at New York City hot spot Buddakan with many prominent party leaders. Press reports said that toward the end of the night, he grabbed the microphone from the deejay and shouted: "If you are supporters of Hillary for President 2008, you can stay. Otherwise, get out." Mr. Hsu has pledged to raise $100,000 or more for Mrs. Clinton, earning the title of "HillRaiser" along with a few hundred other top financial backers of her campaign. Earlier this year, he co-hosted a fund-raiser that raised $1 million for Mrs. Clinton at the Beverly Hills, Calif., home of billionaire Ron Burkle. He is listed as a co-host for another Clinton fund-raiser next month in northern California. The Paw family is just one set of donors whose political donations are similar to Mr. Hsu's. Several business associates of Mr. Hsu in New York have made donations to the same candidates, on the same dates for similar amounts as Mr. Hsu. On four separate dates this year, the Paw family, Mr. Hsu and five of his associates gave Mrs. Clinton a total of $47,500. In all, the family, Mr. Hsu and his associates have given Mrs. Clinton $133,000 since 2005 and a total of nearly $720,000 to all Democratic candidates. William and Alice Paw are of Chinese descent. The entire family got their Social Security cards in California in 1982, according to state records. All but one of the Paws registered to vote as "nonpartisan." A San Mateo County elections official said that members of the Paw family vote "sporadically." No one in the Paw family had ever given a campaign contribution before the 2004 presidential election, according to campaign-finance reports. Then, in July 2004, five members of the family contributed a total of $3,600 to the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat. Five of the checks were dated July 27, 2004. About the same time, Mr. Hsu made his first donations to a political candidate, contributing the maximum amount allowed by law to Mr. Kerry in two separate checks, on July 21, 2004, and on Aug. 6. From then on, the correlation of campaign donations between Mr. Hsu and the Paw family has continued. The first donations to Mrs. Clinton came Dec. 23, 2004, when Mr. Hsu and one Paw family member donated the then-maximum $4,000 to her Senate campaign in two $2,000 checks, campaign-finance records show. In March 2005, the individuals gave a total of $17,500 to Mrs. Clinton. Since then, Mr. Hsu, his New York associates and the Paw family have continued to donate to Democratic candidates. This year, Alice Paw and four of the Paw children have donated the maximum $4,600 to Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. Write to Brody Mullins at brody.mullins@wsj.com RELATED ARTICLES AND BLOGS
Rove hearts Obama On West Executive Avenue next to the White House at this moment, Karl Rove's Jaguar is covered with Saran Wrap and emblazoned with an 'I (heart) OBAMA' bumper sticker on the passenger-side windshield. It's the handiwork of loving colleagues who say they will miss his puckish humor in meetings. Rove is in New Orleans with the president. Karl's technical last day is Friday. 'Good Morning America' had video, thanks to the intrepid Ann Compton, who adds this detail: The sedan's windows are plastered with Post-it notes which spell KING KARL. Two stuffed eagles are mounted on the trunk.
Speaking of Obama -- Obama Offers Hard Truths to Supporters NEDRA PICKLER | August 29, 2007 05:44 PM EST | WASHINGTON — Democrat Barack Obama has a habit of telling interest groups what they don't want to hear, even at the risk of alienating audiences critical to the prospects of a presidential candidate. Not to be undone by his rivals, the Illinois senator has made remarks befitting the myriad of forums and debates he's attended, praising the work of unions, upholding Israel to Jewish groups and decrying President Bush's spending on education. But he's also uttered words not often heard, especially when Democratic constituencies gather. For example: _Obama told the National Education Association that performance-based merit pay ought to be considered in public schools. _Cuban exiles are considered one of the keys to winning Florida, but he disagreed with leaders who want a full embargo against Fidel Castro's government and instead called for allowing travel and money to the island. _Michigan voters play an important role in national politics, but Obama visited Detroit to lecture the state's biggest industry for failing to improve automobile fuel efficiency. "I don't do this for shock value," Obama said in a recent interview while campaigning in New Hampshire. "There may be people who chose not to support me because I'm not telling them what they want to hear or reinforcing their preconceptions," he told The Associated Press. "I want to be elected to the presidency not by having pretended I was one thing and then surprise people with an agenda, but to get the agenda elected, to get a mandate for change. And you can't do that if you're not doing some truth telling." Obama's approach was a signature of chief rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's husband in the 1992 presidential campaign. The strategy is known in modern politics as a "Sister Souljah." In addressing a black audience, Bill Clinton accused the hip hop artist of inciting violence against whites. Some black leaders criticized Clinton, but it helped reinforce his image as a voice of moderation against crime who refused to pander. Also in 1992, Clinton gave back-to-back speeches to a black audience in Detroit and a white audience in the city's suburbs, challenging both to reach across the racial divide to bring political change. A year into his presidency, Clinton told black ministers in Memphis that they must do more to stop violent crime in black communities. "Telling a friendly audience something they don't want to hear is a signal that you can stand up on the tough issues," said Democratic consultant Jamal Simmons. "There will be people who will be upset, but many times the audiences aren't the people in the room but the people on televisions who see you telling you something to a friend that they don't like." Simmons said the politician also has to have enough credibility with the audience to deliver a tough message like telling blacks they need to do more to stop crime. "Other than Bill Clinton, I don't know a white politician who could say it," he said. Since Obama offers blacks a chance to put one of their own in the White House for the first time, he comes with instant credibility. He has told blacks that they are letting homophobia stop them from fighting the spread of AIDS. He repeated a similar message at the largely white Saddleback megachurch, telling the congregation that they should stop preaching abstinence only and instead promote condom use. He says blacks need to vote and clean up their neighborhoods. He has decried movements against affirmative action and unequal spending in black and white schools, but he has said parents also have a responsibility to better educate their children. "Turn off the television set and put away the Game Boy and make sure that you're talking to your teacher and that we get over the anti-intellectualism that exists in some of our communities where if you conjugate your verbs and if you read a book that somehow means you are acting white," he said during a speech in Selma, Ala., to commemorate the civil rights march there. The comments were reminiscent of controversial statements made by comedian Bill Cosby, who said lower-economic people are not parenting and are failing the civil rights movement by "not holding up their end in this deal." Cosby was criticized by many blacks and accused of elitism and reinforcing stereotypes. Obama sees a difference in their approaches. "I think language matters," he said. "I think that the African-American community recognizes there are problems in terms of black men not being home and an element of anti-intellectualism that's in the community. And I think people can hear that as long as you also recognize that the larger society has neglected these communities and that some of this is an outgrowth of segregation and slavery. So you put it in context so it doesn't seem like out of the blue you are quote-unquote 'blaming the victim.'" Perhaps his ultimate diss came when he said he won't go to any more forums because he said he needs the time to campaign to voters beyond the party's core activists. It also cuts into his time fundraising and he has acknowledged that the short time for answers at the debates are not his best format. "I do think that the Democratic Party should be greater than the sum of its parts," Obama said. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070829/obama-hard-truths/
My regards to Edwards for being honest about what big brother, I mean universal, healthcare really means. http://news.aol.com/elections-blog/2007/09/02/edwards-unique-universal-healthcare-proposal/ Edwards' Unique Universal Healthcare Proposal Posted Sep 2nd 2007 9:15PM by Sean Filed under: Democrats, Dem Agenda Senator John Edwards has taken to discussing his plans for universal health care coverage, and some of his statements will surely raise eyebrows. No, it is not the fact that his program will cost $100+ billion dollars a year, nor is it the fact that he proposes to pay for the program by eliminating the Bush tax cuts on households who earn $200,000 a year or more. No, what will raise eyebrows--according to an AP report --is the fact that Edwards' program will mandate by law that all Americans must see their doctor for a series of check-ups in order to undergo preventive care.
If it's an optional program, I don't really see a problem with it. You have two choices: 1. Get your own healthcare (or no healthcare) 2. Get government subsidized healthcare with basic preventative requirements It seems like a good way to offer universal health care while also cutting down emergency expenses and the like. It makes it far more affordable from a government perspective.
Obama has more potential to be a great leader, but I think his inexperience hurt him too much. Hiliary is too good of a politician and she ripped him to shreds. Too bad, we really needed a visionary for President, not a power-hungry politician who will say and do whatever is necessary to win.
He wants to make it mandatory. It sounds eerily similar to what the Tories in the UK wants to do now. Edit: better link
Well, he wants to make it mandatory if you want government-subsidized care. I don't think he wants to make a legal mandate that everyone do it even if they don't get government-funded care. Same in the UK, I believe. From your link: Failing to follow a healthy lifestyle could lead to free NHS treatment being denied under the Tory plans. I don't see an issue with that. Government makes demands all the times in exchange for funds - it demands that states have a legal alcohol age of 21 in exchage for federal transportation money, states demand that you have a car registration and insurance in exchange for driving privileges, etc. I don't see a huge issue with demanding periodic checkups in exchange for cheaper/free healthcare. Certainly a weird concept and not the way we normally think of healthcare, but I don't necessarily see it as unfair or unreasonable. It might be the only real feasible way to reduce overall health care expenses in the long-run.
Now that I think about it, I'm actually a little surprised that no insurance company has offered something like that - if you get a yearly physical, you get a 10% cut in your premium or whatnot. It reduces the cost to the insurance company since more stuff is caught before it's serious and would be a great way to encourage healthiness in general.
its a good idea, but it depends how deep the physical needs to go (insert joke here). Meaning, if you go too elaborite then it may not be cost effective. If the exam isnt thorough enough then it proves worthless in catching any significant problem.
I get a physical every year. If you don't, you're an idiot. (not you, FB! ) D&D. Impeach Bush and Cheney.
There probably should be a 2008 election thread, besides the two threads on the two major political parties, but anyway, here's something interesting... September 09, 2007 NEVADA'S NEW HUE State tips from red to blue for the first time since 1992 By Michael J. Mishak and Alex Richards Las Vegas Sun A funny thing happened in red-state Nevada over the past year. It turned blue. An analysis of voter registration reports over the past 12 months shows many more new voters are registering as Democrats - enough to tilt Nevada to a considerable Democratic majority for the first time since the 1992 presidential election. Back then, Nevada was a solid blue state. Registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by 7 percentage points, and the state voted for Bill Clinton. Today, the unpopular Iraq war and enthusiasm for the Democratic presidential caucus es are playing major roles in giving Nevada Democrats their first significant registration advantage in 15 years. The details: As of August, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 2,800 "active voters," a subset of total registration introduced last year that is considered more accurate because it counts only those voters whose addresses are still valid. The state has 1,033,569 active voters. Nevada Republicans had held the voter registration edge for the past three presidential elections. At the close of registration for the 2006 election , Republicans outnumbered Democrats by about 7,000 active voters. Republicans claimed victory at the top of the ticket in November, winning the governor's mansion. But they narrowly beat back Democratic challenges in two congressional races , and Democrats swept all but one of the remaining statewide offices. Democrats seem to have made their move when the Nevada Democratic Party began preparations last fall for the state's second-in-the-nation presidential caucus es . Six months after the election, Democrats had retaken the majority, having picked up speed in February - the month of the first-in-the-nation Democratic forum in Carson City - and surpassing Republicans in April, as candidates campaigned here. The gains, for the most part, have been in Clark County. Party officials, political scientists and local historians attribute the Democratic surge largely to the caucuses , which have attracted monthly visits from the party's leading presidential candidates, in addition to dozens of paid campaign organizers who travel the state registering voters and seeking support. "Right now is a good time to be a Democrat," UNR political scientist Eric Herzik said. The Iraq war, fiscal irresponsibility and various Washington scandals have demoralized Republicans and unified Democrats, Herzik said. At the same time, the Nevada Republican Party, after a year of poor leadership and lackluster fund raising, is struggling to raise the profile of its presidential caucus es . It has attracted marginal attention from the party's presidential candidates. Nevada historian Michael Green said Republican dominance in Nevada is a recent development, with the party picking up steam here in the late 1980s. Republicans started to gain a foothold empowered by the Reagan years, a presidential message of low taxes and small government, and demographic changes, Herzik said. "Republicans were selling the right product at the right time for Nevada," he said. The advent of major corporate ownership of gaming and the casino industry's aversion to taxes also have aided Republicans by giving them well-funded allies, Green said. The party's momentum, combined with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, led to the party's high-water mark in 2002, when Republicans captured all the state's constitutional offices. The tide has now turned, with the Democratic caucus es serving as a much-needed party-building vehicle. "The important thing for the Democrats is it has allowed them to engage their groups early and get all parts of the party active and organized," Herzik said. Another bright spot for Democrats: The party will have same-day registration for the Jan. 19 caucus es . Republicans, however, have instituted a Dec. 20 registration deadline for their contest. Nevada's transient population has long made it a microcosm of America's election preferences. Since 1908, Nevada has voted for the winner of every presidential election, save one. The state voted for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter in 1976. http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2007/sep/09/566664644.html?Democrat This is interesting. Not large in terms of dollars, for either party (our military people aren't exactly rollin' in dough!), but a shift is taking place in what is traditionally a GOP bastion... the military. Report: Military members turning away from GOP, sending more $ to Dems By: Christa Marshall 9/13/2007 This is not what Republicans had in mind about the word "surge." According to a new report, Democrats are getting a flush of cash from members of the military, a cornerstone of the GOP base. So far this year, 40 percent of campaign contributions from military members have gone to Democratic candidates for president and Congress, according to the campaign finance watchdog group, the Center for Responsive Politics. That compares with 23 percent of military donations to Democrats in 2002, a year before the start of the Iraq war. A chunk of the increase is coming from members of the U.S. Army, who gave 49 percent of their campaign money to Democrats in 2007, up from 28 percent in 2002. The top recipients of the cash are two anti-war presidential hopefuls: Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who received about $27,000 from military members, and Republican Ron Paul, who pocketed more than $19,000. "This (data) suggests that among the military, the people who feel most intensely about the Bush administration and the war in Iraq are negative about it," John Samples of the Cato Institute told the center. "It's a general discontentment over the way the administration has handled the war—or even that we're in a war." But a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee said he wasn't concerned, arguing that Democrats support "fringe" groups such as MoveOn.Org that he said bashed the military. "Republicans have been unwavering in our commitment to America's military, while Democrats have spent the first nine months in control of Congress trying to choke off money for troops in harm's way," said Paul Lindsay of the RNC in a phone interview. Republicans also can take comfort in knowing that individuals from the armed services generally give political dollars in much smaller amounts than employees from other industries. In 2004, military members gave $1.8 million to presidential candidates and members of Congress, a pittance compared with the more than $33 million from entertainment industry employees and $183 million from lawyers. http://www.politicswest.com/8788/report_military_members_turning_away_gop_sending_dems D&D. Impeach Bush and Cheney.
I wonder how many of the new Democratic voters are actually illegal immigrants. For good or ill, IMO the number of non-citizens who are allowed to vote will sway, if not ensure, a Democratic victory.
