Anchorage Daily News endorses Obama

I'm sure Governor Palin isn't happy about this. But perhaps we should be taking the advice of those that know her the most -- her own capital newspaper. While they avoid Palin and frame the argument (correctly) around Senator McCain's weaknesses, the final paragraph reveals their real concerns about the McCain/Palin ticket.

Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

So, even her own "liberal media" won't support her candidacy. Seems the mavricky-ness of choosing a completely unvetted and untested running mate is coming back to bite John McCain in the backside.

Nader in 2008

I just received an update from the Nader/Gonzalez webteam and I must say it was bold. In it, they link directly to the DNC asking people to "give them some more money," if you believe they are the solution to an ailing nation. That's pretty ballsy -- typical email fundraising strategy is pretty clear on NOT linking to your competitor's website. Nader's email pretty much just puts it all out there.

Two weeks ago the Nader team called progressive democrats who had supported the pro-war, pro-Patriot Act, anti-labor, and anti-environmental candidate John Kerry in 2004, "shameful" for selling out. Of course, Medea Benjamin responded on the Nader blog (because Medea is never one to shy away from confrontation, be it detrimental to overall campaign goals or not) stating that everyone should respect each other's choices when it comes to supporting a Presidential candidate. Honestly, if I was Medea I would have left this one alone but she has now given fuel to the fire.

Nader's team responded by having Peter Camejo, his running mate in 2004, write an essay about how the Democratic party lost its soul and began simply curtsying to an unchecked Bush administration. Its a good essay and one that I think ties in the larger questions and concerns that many in this country have about the current 2-party political system.

But at the heart of this disagreement between Nader and Benjamin is the question of whether Progressives can change the Democratic Party from the inside out or whether they can force it to move left by flanking it with candidates like Nader and the Green Party. Benjamin, unlike many people I know, has tried both. Kudos to her for understanding the challenges with both strategies. Nader has tried both as well -- though he's only ever run for office independent of both major parties.

Personally, I feel that its easier to change an entrenched system by getting inside and changing it one artery at a time. Rarely do strategies based on outside pressures work, and I would argue that even those strategies included inside efforts that not everyone knew was going on. I agree with Nader that Democrats caved to status-quo assumptions and pressures from Bush and Co. (which is why I worked for Howard Dean in 2004 -- he was about the only public figure against the war in Iraq from day one). I also respect Medea (and many other progressives) who are working on changing the party from the inside the belly of the beast.

One element that bothers me about Medea's strategy is that assumes the system that we are working within (be it for Republicans or Democrats) is sound and efficient. In reality, we have a system that is completely archaic and not serving the people of the country. This is why so many people have disengaged from the political process -- no one has been able to answer the question, "Whats in it for me?" We have two Presidential campaigns that treat voters as consumers and adopt corporate marketing techniques just so they can communicate with them. Instead, we need candidates who can step back and realize the system itself needs to be more than just tinkered with and actually overhauled. Nader understands this but he's too busy telling us what's wrong instead of taking action on real solutions that are occurring all over the country.

I believe that great change starts from the bottom and trickles up. Well organized efforts often started with one person taking action -- be it suffrage or civil rights. All movements start with one person taking a simple but ofttimes powerful action. Medea knows this, and I'm curious to know her thoughts on working within the Democratic Party at the highest levels and whether that is going to be a successful strategy when it comes to creating long-standing, sustainable change in the party and country. Or maybe DC is where you go after working in and around local and state politics for so many years? I certainly hope not. Career politicians are exactly what we need less of in our leadership.

Powerless

Senior Foreign Policy adviser and long-time friend to Senator Barack Obama, Samantha Power, has resigned her position from the Obama campaign. The news comes after an interview she gave to the London newspaper The Scotsman, in which she referred to Senator Clinton as "a monster."

This is the second misstep by the Obama campaign and while not significant enough to do much damage to the still rolling but appropriately slowed juggernaut of hiscampaign, does raise the question of whether the campaign's inexperience at this level of political contests is beginning to reveal itself.

Last week, news leaked by the Canadian government about comments another Obama adviser made during a separate interview concerning Obama's stance on NAFTA.

Another interview Power gave earlier in the year is garnering attention as well. While talking with the BBC during her book tour she said that Obama's commitment to withdrawing from Iraq is actually not a commitment at all (via Politico):

"What he’s actually said, after meeting with the generals and meeting with intelligence professionals, is that you – at best case scenario – will be able to withdraw one to two combat brigades each month. That’s what they’re telling him. He will revisit it when he becomes president," Power says.

The host, Stephen Sackur, challenged her:"So what the American public thinks is a commitment to get combat forces out in 16 months isn't a commitment isn't it?"

"You can’t make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009," she said. "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator. He will rely upon a plan – an operational plan – that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn’t have daily access now, as a result of not being the president. So to think – it would be the height of ideology to sort of say, 'Well, I said it, therefore I’m going to impose it on whatever reality greets me.'"

Watch the full interview:
While I understand that Barack can't always guarantee his promises on the campaign trail (we Americans are familiar with candidates who fail to follow through on their broad plans "for change") what is shocking about Power's admission is that Obama is indeed asking the American people to believe in something he doesn't believe himself, which for a campaign based on Hope and Unity could be the splinter that breaks the camel's back.

And this brings me to the concern I have with Obama in general. He's not a fighter. He's not going to battle for what's right, even when everyone else is telling him he should. I fear that this age of corporate take-overs and unchecked power calls on leaders and citizens to stand up and fight for change, not negotiate for it. The greatest moments in our history were largely constructed by everyday people and leaders fighting against the status quo or contemporary beliefs. Great change in this country never came about when everyone walked away from the table with a smile on their face. Men beat the iron-jawed angels of the women's rights movement outside the White House gates, and white police officers fire-hosed African-Americans in the streets of Birmingham and neither group committed those acts because they thought they were winning the ideological battle; they committed those acts because they felt they were being seriously challenged by an energized and angry population.

Great change in this country, the kind of change Obama and Clinton perpetually fill their speeches with but fail to expound upon, does not come about from making everyone happy. Sometimes, your decision to stand up for what is right will infuriate people, even your friends, and if your goal is to placate the room, that change will be sacrificed.

While I sense Obama understands this, I don't believe he is truly willing to engender it His own history reflects someone who will continually bend when the opposition makes enough noise, which is an amazing trait and one fit for perhaps another time. But right now we need a fighter.

But the other side of this is, do we think Clinton will do any better? Probably not. So where does that leave me? Once again, settling for someone I don't have tremendous faith in to bring to bear the type of change we could see in this country.

One other spin on this story that isn't being spun: what if the comment had been made by a man, not Sam Power?

Youtube and '08

Youtube has gone political. By creating a hub of all the video content posted by various candidates and their campaigns, YouChoose has made it that much easier for all of us to see our possible future president in his/her finest/worst moments on the campaign trail. The content is put up by the campaign and you can subscribe to each candidate's channel in case you can't get enough of Obama making us all feel warm inside, or Hillary making us all feel empty and cold inside. If you can't bring yourself to watch either one of them, there is always room for Dennis Kucinich.

I like to see/judge which campaign is using this technolgy the best and for that I have a brief set of criteria that I spit out in no particular order or importance:

1. Experience: how many months or days has this candiate's campaign been posting to Youtube?

2. Quality: are the videos all shot on a Treo camera or is there actually some sign of someone who knows what they're doing.

3. Subscribers: who's committed to watching and how many?

4. Diversity: if you put just the campaign speeches up there I'm gonna unsub in a few weeks. Show me different aspects of the campaign trail -- Mitt Romney eats what everyone morning for breakfast? Or how about whats the last thing each candidate does before hitting the sack after a long day of speaking? Keep it colorful....but not a rainbow.

Based on this criteria I'd say Obama is doing really well. He has by far the most subscribers (2,268 -- the next closest is Edwards with just shy of 1,000), has a ton of quality video footage available and its all different stuff. Some of it is created by the campaign and some of it is created by grassroots activists. Other campaigns just don't seem as committed to getting themselves online in a big way. Even Hillary, who received much press on the fact that she announced via a taped webvideo, only has 400 subscribers.

Granted, Obama is quickly wrapping up the student vote and as we all know this generation of students get everything online. Its not surprising that the candidate with the largest Facebook group in history is also the most-subscribed to Youtube channel of any '08 candidates.

Obama on 60 Minutes

I was immensely impressed by both Barack and his wife Michelle in their interview with Steve Kroft. By far two of the strongest most eloquent people I've heard run for president in a long time.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nyUsDOeFo24

Obama's campaign released a new social networking site alongside their campaign website called "My Obama.com." Its a good start and is definitely the closest to any Web 2.o standard than any other candidate but I think Howard Dean set an unrealistic bar when it came to internet ingenuity for a political campaign. Barack's tech team is certainly nipping at Dean's legacy though.