MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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Obama

Promises

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I found out at the last minute that Barack Obama would be making a noon campaign appearance at the Izod Center (the former Brendan Byrne Arena) in the Meadowlands in Rutherford, New Jersey. My 10-year-old son really wanted to go but, thinking we would not be able to get in anyway, I insisted he go to school.

I ran some errands in the morning: took my laptop to be repaired, went to village hall to pay property taxes, then to the post office to mail bill payments. On a moment’s inspiration, I went to the gym. I hadn’t been for four months, since my soccer season ended in November. Did some strength training, which hurt but I was glad I went.

I suggested to my wife we take a drive to the Obama event, see if we could get in. She was game so we went.

We missed Newark Mayor Corey Booker’s full-throated speech. We could hear over the loudspeakers that old warhorse Ted Kennedy giving a vintage performance getting the crowd primed for Obama. Obama took the podium as we were taking our seats.

He gave the same speech I watched him on C-Span give to a St. Louis, MO campaign event, hit some of the same grace notes the very same way I had seen on television. I have seen so many Obama speeches now that I come to expect certain bits and I’m disappointed when I don’t hear them. But Obama rarely disappoints. There are new twists to some old themes but it’s still the same campaign speech.

My wife was still undecided between Hillary Clinton and Obama and was deeply disappointed by his handling of an issue the New York Times wrote about. I, too, am disappointed. It is cases like this that might put doubt in a person’s mind about whether Obama is a real change agent, as he claims to be.

Obama does seem to have a good heart and, because of his service in the Illinois state senate, I believe he has valuable experience. I like that he was a community organizer. That has largely fueled his campaign. He has done a good job against incredible odds and built unprecedented support among the young and across a broad section of our society.

His best moment of the campaign, surpassing even his Iowa caucus victory, was in his defeat in New Hampshire. Listen to his speech. A portion of that speech has even been set to music. Never mind the rich people in the video. Just Listen to the words.

I don’t know what my wife will do in the morning but I believe I will vote for Obama.

February 4, 2008
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Nana says . . .

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Poet Maya Angelou says make for Hillary Clinton President of the United States.

She said recently: ‘I made up my mind 15 years ago that if she ever ran for office I’d be on her wagon. My only difficulty with Senator Obama is that I believe in going out with who I went in with.’

She announced her support in a poem she apparently gave to the Guardian, a newspaper in London. Here’s a portion of their story:

The 79-year-old poet was the centrepiece of Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 when she read her poem On the Pulse of Morning, playing on the idea of a new political dawn. Last week she handed this new poem over to the Clinton campaign.

Angelou says that she has had many long telephone conversations with Winfrey on the subject of Obama versus Clinton. ‘She thinks he’s the best, and I think my woman is the best,’ she has explained. ‘Oprah is a daughter to me, but she is not my clone.’

Here’s a portion of Angelou’s poem:

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

February 4, 2008
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American

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Chris Rock on Obama: “Sometimes I feel like Barack forgets he’s the black candidate in the race. He’s running like he can win this s— fair and square.”

Of all things that have amazed me about Obama’s run for the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States, the tone that he set for his campaign is the one that has impressed me the most. Obama is multi-racial but, as if he has choice in our society, he consciously cultivated a “black” outlook without diminishing other parts of his heritage.

His earliest and biggest hurdle was whether he was “black” enough. Then, it turned out, he might be too black. Yet, he persevered.

I still have my doubt Obama will win the nomination, much less the presidency, but is a credit to him that his campaign has focused on his character and qualifications and (despite Hillary and Bill Clinton’s best efforts) not on his race.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, despite playing up the significance of her gender, at least earlier on, has made it possible for a woman to be taken seriously because she is clearly competent and is qualified to be president.

Her run bodes well for many of the current group of female governors and other leaders to credibly consider that option.

February 3, 2008
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A Well-liked Gentleman

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In the remaining days before Super Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), is reaping endorsements like they’re going out of style. What I know is that, whether this pushes him over the hump in California or not, this is impressive. The L.A. Times said this in its endorsement:

An Obama presidency would present, as a distinctly American face, a man of African descent, born in the nation’s youngest state, with a childhood spent partly in Asia, among Muslims. No public relations campaign could do more than Obama’s mere presence in the White House to defuse anti-American passion around the world, nor could any political experience surpass Obama’s life story in preparing a president to understand the American character. His candidacy offers Democrats the best hope of leading America into the future, and gives Californians the opportunity to cast their most exciting and consequential ballot in a generation.

Wow! The Times finishes with this little ditty:

In the language of metaphor, Clinton is an essay, solid and reasoned; Obama is a poem, lyric and filled with possibility. Clinton would be a valuable and competent executive, but Obama matches her in substance and adds something that the nation has been missing far too long — a sense of aspiration.”

Poor Hillary Clinton, (D-N.Y.). So she’s dutiful but stodgy and uninspiring. I mean it’s not as bad as what her rabid enemies usually say about her, but still . . . Imagine being married to that famous Cassandra, Bill Clinton? But to then run against Obama is worse than unfair. It’s cruel. Let’s say she wins the nomination (because, despite all the kudos Obama is getting, he still faces what seems like insurmountable odds). How do you run for the whole enchilada (with the tsunami of filth that the Republicans are readying to throw at you) knowing you ain’t the prettiest belle at the ball? You failed the inspiration test?

Wait. There’s more. La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the country, which is based in Los Angeles, also gave Obama its endorsement. Although the paper called Hillary “extraordinary,” it knocked her for being “calculating” in opposing to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, the paper could not find enough nice things to say about Obama on immigration:

It is this commitment to the immigration issue which drove Obama to condemn the malicious lies made during the immigration debate, to understand the need for driver’s licenses, and to defend the rights of undocumented students by co- authoring the DREAM Act.

And, oh yes, they also think Obama is inspiring:

We need a leader today that can inspire and unite America again around its greatest possibilities. Barack Obama is the right leader for the time. We know that he is not as well known among our community and while he has the support of Maria Elena Durazo, Senator Gil Cedillo and others he comes to the Latino community with less name recognition. Nevertheless, it is Obama who deserves our support.

I have a radical proposal: Why not make Obama president and Hillary the prime minister. Someone’s got to run the country while Obama bats his eyes at its people, inspiring them.

February 2, 2008
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Why not?

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Because of her endorsement of Barack Obama, some are saying Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius could be a vice-president nominee for Obama. I think a better choice would be Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor running for U.S. Senate.

It’ll be a better, tougher ticket against the troglodytic McCain-Huckabee ticket.

January 30, 2008
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Hope & Ideals

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Caroline Kennedy this week sought to bestow on Barack Obama the aura of her father’s idealism. In hindsight, despite all we know about JFK, a certain saintly glow attends to his legend now. A martyred brother, RFK, buttresses the legend.

And his brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy, changed course on a wasteful life to become a champion of the poor and powerless.

And Obama, despite the taint of Rezko, still retains a certain purity, a neat trick, if I’ve ever seen one. Now, what does he make of all these endorsements?

January 30, 2008
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“A.B.M.”

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The Clintons and the national media covering the Democratic Party race for the presidential nomination have broken out a new story line regarding Barack Obama: That he’s “angry” and “frustrated.” Hillary Clinton practically taunts him with this. It does not help that the media has not only totally bought into this, they’re mischaracterizing their news coverage to turn normal or innocuous exchange with the candidate into “tense” encounters. ABC News breathlessly reported on its website that it had filmed a “testy” exchange between Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times and Obama. Their tape, however, does not match their description of the encounter.

A measured Obama was trying to both sign autographs for voters and talk to the reporters as he campaigned in South Carolina. His voice was not raised. A bemused smile played on his face, as if he recognized the trap he was in. The reporters were trying to manufacture a story where there was none and he was not about to give them one. He even tried to go off the record at one point.

It’s a singular achievement of the Clintons that and the media in this campaign that they’ve managed to turn Barack Obama into the “Angry Black Man” without any evidence of him being one.

January 23, 2008
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