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So, the top news story just now (7pm) when I clicked on Google News is Lauren Dorgan's writeup of the Concord Obama event for the Monitor.
She included in her piece what I thought were two of the best moments of the night. One from Obama,
Obama said that McCain, an Arizona senator, has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time and that his promises of change are hollow.
"They must think the American people are stupid," Obama said...
, and one from the crowd:
Using papers from a college bulletin board and sticks of lipstick borrowed from fellow audience members, they made signs reading "Hockey Moms for Obama."
And now millions of people will be reading about it. Hoo-ray!
Here's a photo of the hockey moms, next to "Republicans for Barack":
Meditation for those bloggers who have been doing this from before the 2008 cycle: how crazy is it that these days you can rely on a campaign to have a YouTube up and ready almost immediately for those events you can't make it to yourself? Some of the DYI aspects of political blogging are going away as the medium grows and evolves...
To those who have become excited by the presidential campaign through Barack Obama's candidacy of change, please read on:
Almost a year ago, when there were seven contenders vying for the Democratic nomination, when Hillary Clinton was ahead in the polls, and when much of the state political establishment was behind her, freshman Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, who had previously been neutral, surprised everyone and endorsed Barack Obama.
Carol Shea-Porter was there for Obama when he needed her the most. And now it's time for Obama and his army of fired up Granite Staters to be there for her.
You see, since her victory in 2006 is defined as something of a surprise fluke - the truth is actually the opposite - the Republican party, debased nationally, feels as if this is one of the few races they have a shot at taking back.
In her short time in Congress, Carol Shea-Porter has been the consistent voice for change that Obama will herald in a new presidency. Just imagine a House and Senate and White House united to undo the damage done these past eight years.
So, fans of Obama, if you are at today's mega-rally in Manchester, consider stopping by to see Carol Shea-Porter, who is kicking off her re-election effort today. It's within walking distance of the rally.
CAMPAIGN KICK-OFF
SATURDAY, SEPT. 13 AT 2PM
CONGRESSWOMAN CAROL SHEA-PORTER at THE CHATEAU RESTAURANT
201 HANOVER ST. MANCHESTER
WWW.SHEAPORTER.COM
for more information call 603-397-3190
Update: CSP, from the kickoff:
"I have kept my promise to you - to stand up against special interests and represent the rest of us," said Shea-Porter. "I am fighting for better veterans care, energy independence and jobs and healthcare for the middle class. Our future requires vision and boldness. We can't go back to the days of rubber stamping failed policies and with your help, we won't. "
And this is brilliant. Courtesy the 'Ticker:
"John Stephen and I disagree on a lot of things, but we agree on one thing and that's Jeb Bradley is [per the vid] was what's wrong with Washington," Shea-Porter told supporters at Chateau restaurant.
My favs are the kids and the Hockey Moms for Obama.
Note: Sometimes the Flickr slideshows aren't working for me in the latest version of Firefox, so if you see a blank screen, try an earlier Firefox or some other browser like Safari.
Somehow, I made it to NH Tech Institute, so we've got a liveblog giong here.
CNN LIVESTREAM HERE
We only had to walk around the building twice to go to the wrong door and have someone tell us to go back again. In the rain. But it's all good. I'm sitting behind the "Reserved for the Union Leader" table.
Liveblog notes below the fold, and more and better pictures coming soon...
Okay- the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind- with visits to newly found Alaska blogs, reading about money taken for bridges to nowhere, moose stew, and creationsism.
But this election is not about Sarah Palin. For anyone to make the decision be about her, or about her qualifications, is to fall for the Rovian strategy. You have to hand it to him and McCain- it was a good move- caught everyone off guard in multiple ways.
I strongly recommend Andrew Sullivan's post today, about how far John McCain has fallen.
here
I knew it - the Palin pick is poison for a state like ours. The older, yankee Republicans are repulsed by such a reckless choice, and the undeclared women of this state are far smarter than John McCain gives them credit for:
The CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation polls were conducted Sunday through Tuesday, with 966 registered voters in Michigan, 940 registered voters in Missouri, 899 registered voters in New Hampshire, and 920 registered voters in Virginia questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points in Michigan, Missouri and New Hampshire and 3.5 percentage points in New Hampshire.
A nicely sized sample, and registered voters. Awesome.
I'll put up more detail on this poll if/when I can find it.
Update: Thank you Garth! Check out the numbers on women and older voters in the poll. Barracuda!
Among men: Obama 46, McCain 48 Among women: Obama 56, McCain 41
Among whites: Obama 51, McCain 44
Among voters under 50: Obama 48, McCain 46 Among voters older than 50: Obama 54, McCain 42
Among voters making under $50,000/year: Obama 59, McCain 38
Among voters making more than $50,000/year: Obama 49, McCain 46
"I have a dream that my four little children
will one day live in a nation where they
will not be judged by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character."
This election marks a potential turning point in American history. The American people will either elect the first black President, following the dictates of logic, self-interest and absolute common sense... or they will elect John McCain and prove that at least a slim majority of the voters in this nation are ignorant fools, religious extremists, blind believers of the partisan propaganda of the right wing, outright racists -- or some horrifying combination of those descriptors.
Now doesn't that put a crimp in the Nascar Mavwreck. From an email:
Manchester, New Hampshire - United States Senator Barack Obama will be coming to New Hampshire this Friday and Saturday to rally Granite State voters and discuss the Obama/Biden blueprint for change.
"We are excited to welcome back Senator Obama to discuss his commitment to helping working Granite Staters and bringing the change we need to Washington, D.C.," said Sandra Abrevaya, New Hampshire Communications Director. "Senator Obama will deliver real change by ending the Bush policy of showering big corporations with tax giveaways and ending the politics that are rigged against working New Hampshire families."
This essay is dedicated to Roy, the biggest Obama fan in Merrimack
My journey in politics began in the Spring of 2003 volunteering for Howard Dean at Keene State College. That year and that campaign made me believe that anything was politically possible, and eventually led me to come back to my hometown to help assail what seemed to be the impossible task of getting Democrats elected here in Merrimack.
While the core of what being a Deaniac meant never left, as the weather grew colder that year, so did I. The fatigue and tedium changed my focus that year changed from helping elect Dean to helping elect a Democrat that would defeat Bush, no matter who it was. By December of 2004, I became jaded towards Presidential Politics.
During this presidential primary cycle, the ambivalence hadn't worn off, but the scale and scope had changed. I must've went everywhere and saw everything that all of the campaigns on both sides had to offer across this great state and beyond.
But even that couldn't bring me back to the summer of 2003. Whenever I heard the candidates speak, what I heard wasn't what they said or what their words meant, but the substance between the words: how those words were said and perceived by potential voters.
I've begun blogging about my travels along the campaign trail here at the bottom of the ticket because so much attention is given to the Presidential campaign that you would think it's the only race being contested this year.
However, the campaign for President is so large that even us small fries get caught up in it, and that happened the other night at a small convention watch party the Merrimack Democrats had at our town chair's house.
Obama's speech was pleasing because of how he said it, he was finally attacking the attacks of McCain, but other than the tone of what Obama said, I honestly couldn't tell you a single thing other than a single part that resonated with me...
"...You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time..."
I have lost track of how many times I had heard Barack Obama speak, either to an audience I was in, or even to my own face. (in Hampton he told me he didn't like stickers on his suit, in Nashua he told me I had asked him too many questions and that somebody else deserved a turn, etc.) Each time I heard him speak, it was in that hardened mold that was born in the Fall of 2003, not caring what he said, but how everybody perceived what he said.
But for that paragraph at Invesco Field, I was transported back to Jack Spratt's farm in Walpole listening to Howard Dean tell us we could change the world, because it captured why the hell I was here better than I could say it myself.
It may seem cliche, but we are at a critical moment in our history where a new way of thinking must replace the old ways, where new leaders challenge the beliefs of the established elite in order to make sure our entire way of life does not collapse from a tired complacency of failed tactics.
The voters of Merrimack are sick of those failed tactics in Concord, whether they be constitutional amendments on education, the 150,000 residents across the state without healthcare, taxes rising without seeming to return any immediate value, or here in Merrimack the endless failures from proposing doomed legislation to bring us a just toll system.
That change isn't going to come from Concord, it is going to come to Concord.
Several days now after he spoke those words, their essence is still rattling around my mind.
These words may sound unusual since I am a Democrat, and both houses of the legislature and the Governor's office are Democratic, and what may sound more unusual is that there are many talented people on both sides of the aisle currently serving in Concord.
Those public servants are like the words in the candidates' speeches, what is the issue is the substance between the words: the actions that trickle down to the average person who is not as politically involved as we are to help them believe that things can get better, that solutions can be obtained.
That is not going to change from the inside, it will take new people.
And that's why four years later, i'm still here in Merrimack, trying to come to Concord.
Since I have been arguing for several years, for several reasons in addition to the fact that it's literally correct, that the election of a President of the United States is not a candidate but a voter action--not to mention that the myth that it is about the candidate leads us to take our eye off the ball--I was, of course, personally gratified to have Barack Obama assert that the election is not about him.
Some people may interpret this as false modesty on Obama's part. I don't. It's just a statement of fact. The people vote. The people select delegates to a national convention and, in the second stage, to the electoral college. And the members of the electoral college, despite their short term of office and little preparation, do the hiring. That's how the process has been set up. It's flawed. We know that, but it hasn't been fixed.
I was in a business that I frequent here in town the other day and the owner asked me about what I thought about the presidential race.
That question has generally bugged me considering there are so many other races on the ballot in November, and was part of the reason why i'm blogging about what it's like to be running a campaign at the bottom of the ticket, but I figured i'd tell him what I really thought and tell him that it's only on the periphery of my focus right now and that I was focusing on myself.
He replied to me "Good, in economics there are things we can control, and things we can't control. It's best just to worry about the things we can control and forget about all the rest."
Barack Obama wasn't going to put Hillary Clinton as the VP just because somebody might have asked him out of fear that the Hillary voters weren't going to show up at the polls for me. Nor should we fear the zombie narrative that these tidal shifts are going to be the deciding factor, and i'm talking to Republicans too on that. This will be a Democratic year, generic Democrats are consistently polling 5 to 10 points better than their generic Republican rivals, but the races will be decided on the ground everywhere, regardless of anything else. Whoever works harder will win.
I may be wrong, but if I am, there's nothing I can do about it, so why worry about the things out of our control? I am working hard and that's all that I can control.
Full transcript below the fold of this right speech at the right time. How proud I am moving forward toward election day with that kind of wind at my back.
Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.
Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.
"Do you believe?" he cried.
Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.
She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn't sure.
"What do you think?" she asked Peter.
"If you believe," he shouted to them, "clap your hands; don't let Tink die."
Many clapped.
Some didn't.
A few beasts hissed.
The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to their nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was saved.
Many months ago, as a then strong supporter of Hillary Clinton, I urged her campaign to "Let Hillary Be Hillary." I thought a lot of her campaign during the four or five months before Iowa and New Hampshire was being mismanaged on the national level, short-circuiting her chances to be President.
The past is past. That was then, now is now. The primary season is over.
Her speech at the Democratic National Convention tonight showed vintage Hillary Clinton -- only better than ever. Obviously, during the past couple of months she put her Penn aside, cleared her head of some of her other "message managers," and restored all that she had been.
This woman should be President, and certainly has a chance in eight years.
I remain a solid supporter of Hillary Clinton, but I'm also excited about Barack Obama. He will be President, with Hillary's help and his excellent choice of Joe Biden, and I'm confident he will do great things.
Barack Obama will get the United States out of Iraq, he'll run a smart war on terrorism, he'll restore our foreign alliances, and he'll work with Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton to create health care for all of us. As a plus, he'll focus on renewing our national commitment to quality education, create new independent energy policies, and reform our economy so that working men and women can make a living.
Lives and futures are at stake in this election, and that's why all of us who supported Hillary Clinton now need to vote for Barack Obama. He'll be a great President. And Hillary Clinton will someday be too.
A really was hoping we could get through the election cycle without something like this, but welcome to the new reality:
CBS4 has learned at least four people are under arrest in connection with a possible plot to kill Barack Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver. All are being held on either drug or weapons charges.
CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass reported one of the suspects told authorities they were "going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a ... rifle ... sighted at 750 yards."
Law enforcement sources tell Maass that one of the suspects "was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama. He responded in the affirmative."
Let's use the thread to discuss this new reality. I wasn't alive in '68, and I was nine or ten when Reagan was shot. This horrific scenario is new to my generation.
(Ray breaks the news! I was sorta hoping it would be a secret till the text came out but hard to keep something like that quiet. - promoted by Dean Barker)
When the primary started out, Biden was as far down on my list as, say, Gravel. But, probably, more than any other candidate, Biden became more and more appealing to me as the race went on. I really do hope he has a spot in an Obama Administration.
And, of course, the best Joe Biden YouTube of all time:
More: Reaction from Republican Senators, via the BO campaign:
Sen. Chuck Hagel: U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel issued the following statement today following Senator Barack Obama's selection of Senator Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic Vice Presidential nominee: "Joe Biden is the right partner for Barack Obama. His many years of distinguished service to America, his seasoned judgment and his vast experience in foreign policy and national security will match up well with the unique challenges of the 21st Century. An Obama-Biden ticket is a very impressive and strong team. Biden's selection is good news for Obama and America," Hagel said.
Sen. Richard Lugar: Tbilisi, Georgia - U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar made the following statement today en route to Tbilisi. "I congratulate Senator Barack Obama on his selection of my friend, Senator Joe Biden, to be his vice-presidential running mate. I have enjoyed for many years the opportunity to work with Joe Biden to bring strong bipartisan support to United States foreign policy..." LINK
Sen. Arlen Specter: Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, a Republican who serves on the Judiciary Committee with Biden and often rides Amtrak with him to Washington, also offered praise. "No one on the Democratic side knows more about foreign policy than Sen. Biden," Specter said. "He's been an articulate spokesman on the subject. He also knows about domestic policy. He's been a leader on crime control." LINK
Meet Chet Edwards, US Congressman from the TX 17th district which includes Crawford, TX.
I taped his remarks to a crowd at the VFW post in Manchester just last Sunday.
He was stumping in NH with Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) and the focus of the day was vet issues.
Edwards is extremely knowledgeable on Vet issues and a tireless champion for their interests, our interests, in the Congress.
The two have become fast friends in DC as Congressman Edwards, Carol's new BFF down there, is the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and VA (MILCON/VA) and she's trying to get either a full service VA hospital in NH which is currently the only state in the country without one or equivalent care in communities for the state's 130K plus vet residents.
Today the Obama campaign will announce the formation of New Hampshire Veterans and Military Families for Obama. With the help of Medal of Honor winner Captain "Bud" Bucha, they will release a long and impressive list of advisory committee members. Jack Mitchell put up a great post on this yesterday ( http://www.bluehampshire.com/s... )
I'm proud to be on that list, with a powerful array of men and women from across services and eras. Obama has a lot to say to vets, most recently just two days ago in his speech to the National VFW convention in Miami ( http://thepage.time.com/obamas... ).
I'm looking forward to working with the group because Obama has a deep and tangible commitment to our troops and vets. Beyond that, though, as a Vietnam vet, fellow Annapolis graduate and VFW member, I'm insulted by John McCain's campaign. You don't have to be a vet to be concerned about his fakery. Many citizens, regardless of their position on the war, are concerned about how we're treating our vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They're writing letters and making themselves heard.
Here's what we're seeing. McCain runs as the man from the Hanoi Hilton. He's a former POW. He's a veteran. He seats vets behind him on stage. He says we can rely on him to support and protect veterans benefits.
To be amazed that he gets away with this in the face of Obama's real record, take the jump.
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