Tuesday, February 6, 2007
News Obama and Georgia
Posted by Max Pizarro on Tue, Feb 6, 2007 at 10:49 PM
Hillary has the money but stands on the wrong side of the war issue. More to the point, no one knows where she stands. She voted for it before she voted against it. She's mired in double speak, and it's only going to get worse. Her campaign manager, Terry McAuliffe, says she won't cave in like Kerry. But she's going to have to go through the same contortions Kerry did to justify Iraq. So she'll be fighting mad -- and wrong.
As an opponent of the president's Iraq intentions from the beginning, meanwhile, Barack Obama got the war right. He's going to be that Eugene McCarthy youth-getter vote with an extra twist of excitement.
Georgians all over him.
To celebrate Obama's official entry into the presidential race, Georgians for Obama will meet this Saturday, Feb. 10, at 6 p.m. at JCT Kitchen & Bar on Howell Mill.
"We will watch a prerecorded video of the senator's announcement and share ideas about how to support Obama in the coming months," says Parag Mehta of Georgians for Obama. "If you want to volunteer for the Obama campaign, or just meet others who are excited about Obama as we are, then you won't want to miss this."
The Illinois senator plans to speak from Springfield, Ill., where Lincoln kicked off his own bid for the presidency.
Still, not everyone's ready to jump aboard the Obama-mobile.
"He's an interesting public servant," says State Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D-Atlanta, president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials. "I don't know him personally. I've been reading his book. I think he will create an interesting dynamic. How far he will go, I don't know."
Doug Monroe blogged in the fall that Obama proved a lackluster keynote speaker at an event for U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Atlanta. I've likewise been bewildered by Barack monotony, and have wondered what the big deal is about him. Then I heard the speech he made in New Hampshire, right after he announced he would be forming a presidential exploratory committee. It was back on Dec. 10, 2006. It was one of the better American addresses I'd heard in a while, right up there with Jim Webb's answer to Bush's State of the Union. There was depth in that speech. A couple of quotes don't do it justice, because like all great speeches, it moved dramatically to a climax.
"At each and every juncture of our history there's been somebody who said we can do better," Obama said. "There's been somebody who has been unwilling to settle for equality for the few, for opportunity for some, for freedom for a handful, and have said we think that we can create a country where everybody's got a shot, where every child can dream, where everybody can apply themselves and work hard and take responsibility and arrive at the American Dream.
"And I think what's been happening over these last several months is people have realized that that kind of spirit has been lost over the last decade. That it's not that ordinary people have forgotten how to dream big dreams, they just think that their leadership has forgotten how. It's not that they still imagine America of limitless possibilities, but they don't have a sense that those in charge are still thinking in those terms. And so what happened in this election, not just here in New Hampshire but all across the country, is that voters decided to start paying attention. They looked up and they said, 'We're in a serious mood and we're in a sober mood and we want to know how can we rekindle that spirit.'"
You know, I heard those words in the context of the whole speech and I started thinking maybe this guy is all right. In any case, it helps when a politician can speak. It's even better if he's taken principled stands on the issues when the rest of the so-called credible candidates in the field have waffled.
It's good to be skeptical about a new politician, but Obama's the Democrats' best bet. He isn't bogged down in his own ethical quagmire over the war. Unlike Gore, he doesn't carry the scars of defeat at the hands of the Karl Rove attack machine. He's got 21st-century verve, and that's going to continue to bounce him over the heads of a lot of these old, tired warhorses in his own party.
-- Max Pizarro
Comments (2)
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John Edwards had my vote until both he and Hillary showed up at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual New York dinner rattling sabers about the coming war with Iran. http://www.aipac.org/1680.asp#2522 The key issue for 2008 is not going to be Iraq but Iran. Will Obama stand up and say "No!"?
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