Obama Archives — Page 8 of 9 — As in guillotine...

My Awesome God’s Full of Hope!

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 14, 2008
Post category:Personal
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(an off-the-cuff villanelle, kind of by request) Because we live in a time of pure dread our future at the mercy of madmen I worship the awesome god in my head. Bush kisses his nukes each night before bed while Cheney cackles away in his den because we live in a time of pure dread. With Rudi's campaign not yet in the red and Huckabee-ing America's friend I worship the awesome god in my head. McCain wants Asians and Muslims all dead and crazy Paul raises crazy millions because we live in a time of pure dread. While Clinton plays word games, "he…

There’s Something (Wrong) About Hillary

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 14, 2008
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As recently as this past Saturday, while working the Obama visibility event in Union Square, I said to several people that I thought one of the best things about this election is that we have three viable Democratic candidates who have a legitimate shot at winning the Presidency in November. Barack Obama, obviously, is my first choice, with John Edwards a close second and Hillary Clinton a distant, but not totally unpalatable third. Not even 48 hours later, I see two viable candidates and one who is quickly becoming so toxic that not only can I see myself not voting for her in November, but dedicating my time and energy to working for the opposition, ideally Mayor Bloomberg’s inevitable campaign.

There was a brief moment early last week where I believed the combination of the historical import of a Clinton vs. Obama primary and the slam dunk seemingly awaiting the Democrats in November would override the petty politics-as-usual campaign tactics; that they would be able to engage on the issues and focus on their very different approaches to achieving their goals. I hoped there would be a very conscious decision by all three candidates to fight fair so as to ensure a healthy nominee we could all get behind in November.

Instead, I’m watching Hillary, Bill and company piss all over the process and claim that it’s just raining.

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Obama Visibility in Union Square

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 13, 2008
Post category:Personal
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I attended my first “visibility” event for Barack Obama yesterday, in Union Square, right in the midst of the Greenmarket, a perfect location to both be seen by and talk to a pretty diverse range of New Yorkers. There were approx. 20 of us spread throughout the Market, armed with “Obama ’08” signs and, with the deadline to register to vote in the Feb. 5th primary having passed, sign-up forms for people to pledge their support for him and offer to volunteer to help the campaign. I signed up 12 people during the 2.5 hours I was out there (including three potential volunteers), got a thumbs up from a few dozen more who said they were already supporting him, and had interesting discussions with a handful of people, including one who was tentatively supporting Hillary Clinton but keeping an open mind.

As a former Jehovah’s Witness, the whole steup was very familiar, and within about a half-hour, I was pretty comfortable being out there, not missing a beat when I bumped into a former co-worker, something that had always felt awkward back in those days of, um…campaigning for God. One of the things I learned back then was to read body language and faces and eyes, to discern between those who don’t see you and are actively avoiding seeing you, and those instincts were still pretty strong yesterday.

Interestingly, and purely anecdotal and subjective, most of those I saw who openly supported Obama — either by signing up or offering encouraging comments — were white, while a lot of the black people who passed me by either noticeably avoided making eye contact or had looks that I interpreted as an odd mix of melancholy and wistfulness. Of the various people I spoke to, several of them, all intending to vote for whomever the Democrats ultimately put forward, spoke of a deep distrust of the Clintons, one in particular whose comments were so outlandish I had to not-so-subtly shoo him away.

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The Problem With John McCain

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 11, 2008
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I said elsewhere recently that I thought John McCain would be the least likely Republican candidate to make a Freudian slip and drop a racial epithet if running against Barack Obama. I’d forgotten about his reference to “gooks” during the 2000 presidential primaries, though. And then, during last night’s Republican debate on Fox — one of the most depressing things I’ve watched in years, BTW — he dropped this beauty and I realized exactly how important this year’s election is:

“I’m not interested in trading with al-Qaeda. All they want to trade is burqas. I don’t want to travel with them. They like one-way tickets.”

Generally speaking, I had considered McCain the most palatable of the Republican field despite his aggressive stance on the war, but this kind of casually racist — and clearly pre-scripted — comment, presumably okay because it’s in reference to an enemy — his justification for the “gook” comment, too — brings to mind Stephen King’s Dead Zone, visions of his crazy ass starting World War III being even clearer than those I’ve had of Dubya. (Fred Thompson has a noticeably itchy trigger finger, too, and is looking more like a potential VP choice for McCain, which is scary as hell.)

I watched about 30 minutes of the debate before I couldn’t take it anymore and came away with a better understanding of the appeal of Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, who at least come off as sincere representatives of their respective platforms, even though the latter seems easily distracted from the point he’s making at any given moment. Paul was the recipient of some unwarranted contempt and derision from both the moderator, the insufferable Britt Hume, as well as several of his fellow candidates, and while he has no real shot at winning the nomination, with the impressive financial support he’s received, I can see him launching a 3rd party candidacy that siphons some votes from the Republicans and possibly even some of the ill-informed progressives who blindly backed Howard Dean in 2004.

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Calm down, people (Part II)

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 9, 2008
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One of the must-read blogs for coverage of the primaries is Talking Point Memo's Election Central, and they've just posted the text of an Obama campaign memo noting the strong fundraising over the first 8 days of the new year -- more than $8 million plus 35,000 new donors, which includes me and my now $100 in donations -- and their strategy and prospects for the upcoming primaries in Nevada, South Carolina and Super Duper Tuesday. Of particular note: In all of the February 5th states, we have active chapters at most colleges and universities and are pursuing support from independent voters aggressively…

Calm down, people

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 9, 2008
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“In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope!”
— Barack Obama

Anyone falling for the media spin that Hillary Clinton’s victory last night in New Hampshire was an upset (or even a comeback) is suffering from a seriously short attention span. She was leading pretty comfortably there before Iowa and managed to salvage a 3% victory over the upstart Barack Obama who, I think, got a little caught up in the hype around the historical import of his candidacy and coasted a little bit. She did it through a mix of old school political strategy, going negative against Obama in the final couple of days, and an accidental slip of her robotic demeanor that revealed the human being underneath. Anyone who thinks the latter will come to define her campaign moving forward is crazy.

That said, I think her narrowly winning NH is a good thing for Obama as he will benefit more than her from an extended campaign that runs, at least, through Super Duper Tuesday — I refuse to call it Tsunami Tuesday — because it will give him the opportunity to clarify a couple of things about himself, including the simple fact that on the political experience front, he trumps both Clinton and Edwards, as Phil West pointed out on his Obama blog:

But the top three Dem candidates actually have very similar resumes, despite Clinton’s familiarity with the White House from having lived in it. All three are lawyers who have folded activism in some form into their legal careers. If you’re looking at their careers as elected officials, Obama actually has the edge, having spent a decade in either the U.S. Senate or the Illinois legislature, whereas Clinton is on her seventh year as a U.S. Senator (with no prior eleced office) and Edwards served one six-year term.

Speaking of Edwards, I’m glad he’s not dropping out yet because his voice is an important one to have in the mix and my guess is he will continue to target Clinton as the “status quo” candidate, allowing Obama to focus on representing his campaign’s powerful message of hope. His speech last night was arguably as good, if not better, than his speech Iowa as it had a slightly harder edge to it, challenging Americans to stand up and be heard, to not let anyone tell us what can’t be done, echoing JFK’s “Ask not…” with his own catchphrase, “Yes We Can!”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe751kMBwms]

Check out the full text of Obama’s “Yes we can!” speech.

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I Believe, and I’m All In

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 4, 2008
Post category:Personal
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Barack Obama pulled off something special last night with his impressive victory in the Iowa caucuses, and while I’m always reluctant to declare “history in the making” while still in the moment, it’s hard not to get caught up in the glorious potential of that moment.

This moment.

“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”
Abraham Lincoln

“I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.”
Robert Kennedy

“This was the moment when we finally beat back the politics of fear, and doubt, and cynicism; the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up. This was the moment. Years from now, you’ll look back and you’ll say that this was the moment – this was the place – where America remembered what it means to hope.”
Barack Obama

I supported Dennis Kucinich in 2004 even though I knew he had no shot, because he was the candidate closest to my beliefs, the one who represented a real change from the status quo. I made my first political donations ever to his well-intentioned but ill-fated campaign — approx. $200 over three donations, IIRC — and made tentative steps towards getting involved in his campaign by attending both a MeetUp and a fundraising event before he was completely pushed to the margins once it became about Kerry vs. Edwards.

2004’s results broke my heart a little bit, though, and my spirit, and I was planning to sit on the sidelines during the primaries this time around, fully expecting to have to cross my fingers and hold my nose again while pulling the lever for whichever compromised candidate the Democrats put forward, the faintest hope that Mayor Bloomberg would decide to join the fray keeping total despair at bay. I ignored the phone calls and emails from Kucinich’s campaign requesting my support again; ignored most of the coverage of the other campaigns until last month; ignored my gut instinct that this election was too important to ignore…

Barack Obama, though, has given me the unique opportunity to support a candidate I can wholeheartedly get behind and who actually has a chance to win. Of course, I don’t agree with him on every single issue, same as I didn’t agree with Kucinich on every single issue, but I admire the passion, the sincerity, and most importantly, the urgency he has brought to his campaign, to this election, to this crucial moment in American history where we have a legitimate opportunity to choose between jumping off the cliff once again or carving out a new path.

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