Jerame turned me on to the new Obama iPhone application late last week and I wanted to share it with ya’ll. I know a lot of our readers are Mac users and several of you e-mail me from your iPhone, so this should go over like gang busters!
It’s amazing how technologically advanced the Obama campaign is. While McCain can’t get online, the Obama team is using every advantage computers can give. From their masterful use of text messaging to their campaign site where you can download your own local walk list, the Obama camp has definitely grasped the new face of politics.
The coolest feature of the application is “Call Your Friends.” The app will go through your address book and sort them by battleground states; it arranges them in order of who you should call first to urge them to vote for Barack. Once you’ve made the call, the app records it and asks you how the call went: “Considering Obama,” “Voting Obama,” “Left message,” etc. It will also provide you with the latest news, info on local volunteer activities and upcoming events in your area.
Its lines like this that make me more than a little gay for Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos:
Many people will warn against “getting complacent”. I like to approach this potential problem differently — we have a chance to rip out the GOP’s jugular. We can throw them an anvil. We can kick them while they’re down. No matter the metaphor, the underlying meaning remains — we can destroy the Republicans. Now’s not the time to slack, it’s the time to pick things up. We’ve got them in a near rout. Let’s destroy them.
In his post Markos is warning people to expect a scorched Earth wave of negative attacks from the McCain campaign against Obama because of Obama’s rising poll numbers with less than 30 days left in the campaign. In the attacks we can expect McCain to question Obama’s patriotism, religious faith, and experience. You can also expect to see the return of Rev. Wright, madrasahs, Bill Ayers and anything else McCain can think to pull out of his magic hat of political distraction to keep from talking about the issues that matter to voters. Nearly 100% of McCain’s ad spending is devoted to attacking Obama.
What you want see from the McCain campaign is something like this:
I get that negative attacks are a part of the political game and that they can be quite effective. But McCain’s campaign strategy of “attack, attack, attack” is much like the GOP chant “drill, baby, drill.” It is a whole lot of smoke and mirrors that doesn’t address the issues at hand and fails to deliver the change that we need now.
It seems there is a new threat to our country- an insidious danger that is seeping into our homes and everyday lives that must be stopped at any cost. That threat is intellectualism.
We have heard the some of the buzzwords of this political season- Folksy, Joe Six-pack, Elitist, and Arugula Eating. It seems the new “culture war” or wedge issue is intelligence. The Vice-Presidential debate only solidified the lines in this war. On one side, you had Palin- full of “folksy charm” and “you betcha” language. Then you had Biden, who had a command of the issues, but was called “boring” and (gasp!) “professorial” by the pundits.
Is this the point we have come to in our country? Do we really think that having knowledge about an issue is a liability? Have we learned nothing from the past eight years about voting for the person you “want to have a beer with”? Is being smart or intellectually curious a bad thing?
It seems the war is on and the Republicans have launched another surge strategy.
By Rick Rosendall
First published September 25, 2008 in Bay Windows
When the stakes in an election are high and our chances of victory are quite good, we can become so invested in winning that we start making threats about what we’ll do if we lose – whether we are opposing Proposition 8 in California or supporting Barack Obama for President. I have heard things like, “I’ll boycott,” or “I’ll leave the country.” We should resist these impulses because they are untrue (how many would actually emigrate?), they waste energy, and they give comfort to our adversaries. Social conservatives would love to see LGBT folk disappear.
Consider the logical result of boycotting states that pass anti-gay ballot initiatives. Such a stance would already exclude us from three-fourths of the country, not to mention punishing friends in those states. Fortunately, a more proactive approach has gained strength in recent years, as statewide groups – members of the Equality Federation – improve advocacy and organizing to elect allies and eliminate discriminatory policies in the states.
Some states, of course, are further along than others in the fight for marriage equality. We stand a better chance this year of defeating California’s Proposition 8 than Arizona’s Proposition 102. It is perfectly reasonable for donors to direct greater support toward fights where we stand the best chance of winning. But our long-term success depends on building capacity across the country in addition to preserving our victories in Massachusetts and California. There is plenty of work for all of us, and no use for hand-wringing and crying doom. To help defeat anti-gay amendments to state constitutions, visit votenoprop102.com for Arizona, noonprop8.com for California, and votenoon2.com for Florida.
As for the presidential election, given the recklessness, dishonesty and desperation of the McCain campaign, and the appalling prospect of another four years of Republican residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I have some sympathy for those who say they will do something dire if Obama loses. But their time would be better spent seeing that he doesn’t lose.
Okay, we were told that there was no money to provide healthcare to poor kids, properly take of our soldiers who had their minds and bodies shattered in Iraq, fix our crumbling schools, repair our national infrastructure or rebuild New Orleans. But, now George Bush is requesting $700 billion to bail out the financial services industry that he, Dick Cheney, John McCain and the rest of the “of the rich, by the rich and for the rich” Republican Party has destroyed?
Struggling to stave off financial catastrophe, the Bush administration on Friday laid out a radical bailout plan with a jawdropping price tag _ a takeover of a half-trillion dollars or more in worthless mortgages and other bad debt held by tottering institutions.
There are excellent developments to a story we posted last week on Republican-lead efforts to deny voting rights to homeowners facing foreclosures in Michigan. The story has gone national. The Barack Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee and several Macomb County voters filed a lawsuit in federal court in Detroit to prevent the practice.
The injunction [would] prohibit the Macomb County GOP, the Michigan Republican Party, the Republican National Committee or anyone connected with them from challenging Michigan voters whose homes are on foreclosure lists.
Obama campaign general counsel Bob Bauer said during a conference call with reporters that the “lose your home, lose your vote” strategy, even if the challenges are unsuccessful, “creates an atmosphere of intimidation that could drive voters from the polls” because even people who aren’t challenged may leave without voting because polling gets bogged down.
Even better news: The despicable Republican foreclosure strategy is now becoming a campaign issue because “Obama was joined by running mate Joe Biden and a dozen other Democratic U.S. senators in calling on Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to ensure that voters facing foreclosure aren’t harassed or intimidated at polling places.”
But wait there’s more. Macomb County Republican Party Chairman James Carabelli claims he did not say the state party would challenge voters whose homes are on foreclosure lists. The party boss claims he will sue MichiganMessenger.com for libel if they do not retract the story. ‘Cause, you know, the Republican Party never challenges or suppresses voters and they can prove that. Not.
Voting rights are a bedrock of the Democartic Party and it’s freakin’ fantastic the Obama campaign will challenge Republicans in Michigan over this sacred right. After weeks of lackluster campaigning and being off-message, it’s downright orgasmic to hear Obama will adopt this issue. As we said last week, this is a winning issue in Michigan for the Obama campaign.
By Richard J. Rosendall
First published September 11, 2008 in Bay Windows
I’m sick of the phony reasons some gay people give for opposing Barack Obama. I am not talking about my friends in Log Cabin Republicans, who prefer John McCain for broader ideological reasons. I am talking about angry Hillary Clinton supporters.
For example, Sirius OutQ talk-radio host Larry Flick, still upset that Clinton had not won the Democratic nomination, slammed Obama on Aug. 28 for opposing same-sex marriage. Yet Clinton holds the same position on marriage — except that she would only repeal Article 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, whereas Obama favors total repeal.
Flick challenged Sirius Left host Mark Thompson, an African American minister and activist with whom I’ve worked for years, on his support for Obama. Flick expressed outrage that Obama accepted help from “blatant, aggressive homophobes” Donnie McClurkin and Illinois state Sen. James Meeks. Yet Clinton enjoyed support from homophobic Bishop Eddie Long of Lithonia, Ga., and from former D.C. City Council member Vincent Orange, who as a mayoral candidate in 2006 called his opponents morally unfit for supporting marriage equality.
Elizabeth Birch, longtime LGBT activists and former Executive Director of the Human Rights Campaign talks about the stark differences between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain on LGBT issues.