Carol Campaigns to Save the Country

by: Bill Duncan

Fri Aug 22, 2008 at 09:45:26 AM EDT

It's all driven by her famous post card strategy.  People get together and address post cards to their neighbors inviting them to the house party to meet Carol.  Then they do the party.  Then they follow up.  Then the elect Carol.

There were vets, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard workers (at least one, "JJ", who said how much they appreciated Carol's support), and folks of every description.  Connie Margowsky, Chair of the Somersworth Town Democratic Committee, gave a warm introduction and Carol started off at a run.

I've seen a lot of Carol speeches now and they all start at full tilt, as if you've come into the room in the midst of an intense conversation.  And it is a conversation.  It's never the same twice.  You hear some of the same stories and themes, but it's like a musician responding to the audience.  You get what's on her mind for this group, right now.

She doesn't talk about herself so much as you learn about her by the stories she tells about what's going on down in Washington out of public view.  You might hear about getting better medical services for New Hampshire veterans or emergency LIHEAP funding for this winter or children's health or biofuels.  It might be about the venality of people - just some people in Washington.  But somehow its never about partisanship.  Republicans, Independents, Democrats, those in the top 1% - they can all be bad or good in the Shea-Porter lexicon.  It just depends on whether they are actually doing the people's work or are working for the special interests and cynically covering their tracks.
 

Barack Obama beats John McCain Big on Vets Issues

by: Bill Duncan

Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 10:39:26 AM EDT

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.

H/T to Mike Caulfield on John Sununu's LIHEAP scam

by: Bill Duncan

Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 09:35:39 AM EDT

And here's what came out today: http://www.seacoastonline.com/... .  The first letter is John Sununun selling his LIHEAP scam.  Then there's mine, summarizing Mike's point but with the confidence that it's well grounded.

Just thought BHers should know how leveraged your work is.

Carol Shea-Porter Makes Tracks in Congress

by: Bill Duncan

Wed Aug 20, 2008 at 09:23:52 AM EDT

What can a freshman in Congress really do?  Shea-Porter has already passed 3 bills that she wrote and introduced and she has many more in the pipeline.  Jeb Bradley, on the other hand, never in four years got a bill out of committee.

Carol Shea-Porter's legislation is varied and illustrates her campaign theme - working "for the rest of us."  Her "Combat Veterans Debt Elimination Act" (HR 5155) requires that the VA forgive the debt of service members who die in combat (they had been chasing down their surviving family members!).  Then, when UNH alerted her to the attempt by the Bush administration to shut down Upward Bound, a great program that helps poor kids attend college, she wrote HR 2700, and got it passed, to save the program.

Her biofuels research bill (HR 3101) became part of the Farm Bill this year. It helps local farmers and others develop biofuels to combat the rising costs of home heating oil.

This is above and beyond a wide range of other important work.  She has strengthened the long term prospects of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard by bringing almost $12 million in investment in new facilities.  She just introduced a bill that would, on an emergency basis, triple the funding for home heating oil assistance for low income people this winter.

And she's on a tear now to improve medical care for New Hampshire veterans.  She's just introduced "The Veterans Equity Health Act" (HR 6620) that would require that the VA expand the Medical Center in Manchester or provide comparable services by contracting with local New Hampshire hospitals.

Jeb Bradley spent four years in Congress and left no tracks.  Carol Shea-Porter thought she was sent there to do the people's work and has set a new standard for how effective a freshman can be.

Veterans Turn Out for Carol Shea-Porter

by: Bill Duncan

Mon Aug 18, 2008 at 12:55:57 PM EDT

Of course, politicians often campaign for each other to support the party and gather chits, but it's clear that Shea-Porter and the powerful Edwards, who's been in Congress for 18 years and controls the VA budget, are actually close working allies.  He's never campaigned for another Member of Congress like this before.  Carol told the story of how she arrived in Congress concerned that New Hampshire was the only state without a full service VA hospital and wondering why our Congressional delegation had never worked on it.  Seeing Edwards as part of the solution, she introduced herself to him and said, "You're going to be my new best friend."  

That's what seems to have happened.  They tell stories about battles waged.  Carol took him on a tour of the VA Medical Center in Manchester and organized a meeting there with 30 vets, including VFW, American Legion and AmVets representatives, wounded vets from Vietnam and Iraq, veterans advocates and others to tell him how important expanded medical services are.  More on that in another post.

But the highlight of the day was the barbecue at the Sweeney Post.  More on this, and pics, after the jump.

Recruiting Veterans and Military Families for Carol Shea-Porter

by: Bill Duncan

Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 12:20:26 PM EDT

Veterans and Military Families for Carol Shea-Porter is signing up fellow veterans and military family members to help put Carol over the top this November. Twenty five percent of our voters in the first district are veterans or their families, so vets can make a big difference in Carol's effort to push back against Republican targeting and send her back to Congress.  Here's how you can help right now:

• If you're a veteran: Please click here and take a moment to complete the form. A Carol Shea-Porter campaign organizer will be in touch with you shortly.
• If you know a veteran or military family: Please link this post to any veterans you know and urge them to sign up here .
• If you don't live in Carol's district: Still feel free to sign up here saying who you support or share this note with veterans in your area, and we'll get the information to the right organizers.

Carol believes we need to undo the damage that President Bush has done to our foreign policy and change our strategy in the fight against terrorism.  This means increasing our efforts in Afghanistan, ending George Bush's failed policy in Iraq, and engaging the entire Middle east diplomatically, economically, politically, and, where necessary, militarily to do what George Bush has not done: focus on Afghanistan where the terrorists came from and bring real stability to the broader Middle East. Beyond all that, we know we can trust her to represent us.

"Carol is a true American patriot fighting for veterans and their families.  I'm proud to have her representing me in Washington." - Terence M. O'Rourke, Assistant Rockingham County Attorney, former Captain, US Army, Field Artillery, operations officer for a Military Transition Team embedded with the Iraq Army in Ramadi and Taji, Iraq, June 2006 to June 2007

Help reach out to our vets.  Pass it on!  

Held to a higher standard?

by: Bill Duncan

Fri Jul 25, 2008 at 00:08:02 AM EDT

...The focus [of the race] has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with the background and experience level of Sen. Obama?

This dynamic is underscored in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey's most striking finding: Fully half of all voters say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. Obama would be as they decide how they will vote, while only a quarter say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. McCain would be.

The challenge that presents for Sen. Obama is illustrated by a second question. When voters were asked whether they could identify with the background and values of the two candidates, 58% said they could identify with Sen. McCain on that account, while 47% said the same of Sen. Obama. More than four in 10 said the Democratic contender doesn't have values and a background they can identify with.
...
"Obama is going to be the point person in this election," says pollster Peter Hart, a Democrat who conducts the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll along with Republican Neil Newhouse. "Voters want to answer a simple question: Is Barack Obama safe?"

But I was talking last night with Wayne Burton, long time Democratic activist from Durham, about what we need to be doing to win in November.  He observed that both Deval Patrick and Barack Obama are "held to a higher standard" in the voting booth and then in their jobs.

This struck me as a gentle and insightful way to put it.  The Journal brushes up against the race issue in this paragraph:

The excitement and the uncertainties about the Obama campaign flow from his unusual personal profile. Not only is he the first African-American to win a major party's nomination: He also was raised by a single white mother, spent his formative years in Hawaii and Indonesia, got an Ivy League law degree, has been in the Senate less than four years, attended a controversial African-American church, and is married to a strong professional woman who has stirred up some controversy herself.

The article goes on to include important quotes on race as a factor.  The question is, will the voters set an impossibly high standard.

More on John McCain in Rochester

by: Bill Duncan

Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 17:44:32 PM EDT

In the end, John McCain seemed like a guy preaching oft-told stories to his flock, accepting their adulation by holding his microphone with both hands, pressed to his chest vertically, smiling and casting his eyes down with a mix of humility and sanctimony.  He made jokes about his various flubs, the kind that reveal an underlying lack of understanding of what's really going on in the world.  And he made new ones.  At one point, a supporter yelled out that he might be mixed up but his heart was in the right place (Made me wince.  The comment, offered with affection by the chair of NH Vets for McCain, did unintentionally convey the general sense in which McCain was accepted in the room, but it wasn't really deserved in that case - he'd done pretty well remembering a local program for homeless vets).  

He cycled through the slogans you see in the news, always making something about how wrong Obama is the punch line at the end.  You think to yourself, drawing distinctions is fine, but you know he's in trouble when he's so obsessed with the other guy.  When a woman stood up to ask, in a long well-articulated question, how he could support an illegal war in Iraq, he never engaged the question.  He just reenacted this part of the dance, commented upon approvingly in the media:  he gives her back the mike to debate further with him, defends her in the face of ritual boos all around (she was tough, spirited, not cowed in the least) and  then patronizes her with nostrums about how great it is that we can disagree in America.  

I guess that's it - McCain's whole town hall thing has become a comment on itself.  He's so comfortable in the format that he's warn deep groves in the path through it.  He tosses people his microphone.  He gives One and DividedWeFail time for 1 minute commercials.  The couple next to me with a son in Iraq cheers from the heart when I delivers the line about victory.  (My friend makes the astute observation that they're here for their son, not so much for McCain.)

All the attributes Dartmouth Dem enumerates in his comment on this post ( http://www.bluehampshire.com/s... ) were on display today and, for those reasons and more, we've got a real fight on our hands.  But, I have to say, John McCain does not come across to me like a presidential contender on a national stage.
Update:The woman who ask the great Iraq question was Barbara Hilton of Portsmouth, the New Hampshire coordinator for Code Pink.  

Billy's Back!

by: Bill Duncan

Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 06:27:13 AM EDT

I'm not going to try to do justice to a great event at the Manchester Combined Campaign office opening last night - that'll take a separate post.  But I thought these shots, with Sylvia Larson right there in the first one, captured the Billy Shaheen who's back and working around the clock for Democrats and is urging the rest of us to do the same.

Some Bradley/Stephen observations

by: Bill Duncan

Sat Jul 19, 2008 at 11:20:08 AM EDT

Over 100 people attended the forum.  Stephen had the front row filled with his wife, family and supporters and got the most audience support throughout the evening.  Bradley looked as if he'd come down alone from Wolfeboro.  (A third candidate, Geoff Michael was there too.)

Stephen gives off a whole different intensity than Bradley, who's just sitting there like a good enough guy waiting his turn..  Part of the Stephen thing is the right wing fervor.  And partly it's his physical look - he's trim, tight, short hair, intense.  When he's answering, he's clear and fervent.  In between, he's like a boxer waiting to be let out of his corner.  His body is curled; he's focused inward, not looking around at all.  Just very intense.

But he doesn't have much to say.  It's all right wing, freedom, patriotic platitudes.  His platform amounts to getting back to the Contract with America.  That's it.  It's hard to see how he reaches out beyond the hard core.  

And Stephen comes across to me more like a true believer than a politician.  In fact, neither Stephen nor Bradley worked the room before the event the way Carol would have.  They just waited by their chairs, Stephen sometimes talking with a retainer.

Certainly, they both mis-characterize Carol's positions, but Jeb Bradley is much more serious about it.  He's got his points and he repeats them often.  In the general, while Stephen would run against Washington (and Carol), Bradley would run against Carol.

In both cases, they stick to the time worn nostrums and simple Republican applause lines, especially about the First and Second Amendments.  Steven would definitely be the conservative movement candidate and member of congress going down to Washington, fire in his eye, to straighten every one out about how to get right with the Contract for America.  Bradley would again be the conventional conservative soldier with the sleepy office where not much is happening beyond opening leadership emails about how to vote.

'Course, we'll never know.  Jeb blew his best chance when he had a novice to run against in 2006.  Now he's got a real politician on his hands.  Carol gives a great speech, raises lots of money (!), works for her constituency, introduces relevant, carefully constructed legislation, takes principled stands and educates her constituency about them.....  No wonder the Republican party's geared up against her.

In case you had any doubt about Republican rhetoric for the fall, here after the jump is the form it took the other night (these are my summaries, not exact quotes):

Jeb Bradley wades in over his head critizing Carol Shea-Porter's FISA vote

by: Bill Duncan

Tue Jul 08, 2008 at 08:17:19 AM EDT

Carol-Shea Porter's vote means she believes it's more important to punish the telecommunications companies that protected us than to assist the intelligence community, which is also trying to protect us.

Although this line of attack was inevitable, which is presumably why Obama has declined to enter the fray so far, Carol voted against retroactive immunity because it was the only right thing to do.

I won't rehearse the arguments here for this knowledgable crowd, but my comment is on the UL site.

It's a great opportunity to communicate with open minded folks about the constructive, principled patriotic work Carol is doing in representing us in Congress.  Feel free to inundate the Union Leader, and other papers where this will probably appear, with your own on-line comments and letters to the editor.  

Update: Here, in a Union Leader OpEd, is Carol's own explanation of her vote: http://www.unionleader.com/art...  

Carol Shea-Porter in Her Element on the Fourth of July

by: Bill Duncan

Sun Jul 06, 2008 at 13:54:28 PM EDT

Paul Hodes continues to do the people's business

by: Bill Duncan

Wed Jul 02, 2008 at 08:38:13 AM EDT

Meanwhile, Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter continue working away doing what they can in the face of Bush administration efforts to hide the true cost of the war.

Today's Union Leader finds a snarky way to report on the fact that Paul is co-sponsoring a bill to increase the milage vets get when they trek to distant facilities for treatment ( http://www.unionleader.com/art... ).  The proposal is to increase it from 29 cents per mile to the 58 cents federal employees get for milage reimbursement.  This is no alternative to local treatment but is inherently fair and is a way to ameliorate the pain until we get a Democratic administration with real commitment to our troops and veterans.

While the paper tries to carry water for Grant Bosse and his fellow Republican challengers, calling this legislation (introduced by Indiana Republican Mark Souder!) an election season ploy, the record shows that Hodes has been in there swinging throughout his first term.  Last spring he introduced legislation, co-sponsored by 42 Democrats, that would create an Ombudsman's office in the VA to help vets get the attention they deserve.  He has consistently supported progressive veterans legislation.

It's up to us to be sure that people know how productive our two members of congress really are.

More Unity Pics

by: Bill Duncan

Sun Jun 29, 2008 at 10:38:36 AM EDT

Looking good for the GI Bill

by: Bill Duncan

Thu Jun 19, 2008 at 12:01:04 PM EDT

We've really got to take this party split seriously

by: Bill Duncan

Tue Jun 03, 2008 at 09:13:12 AM EDT

So I said to him yesterday,"What do you think about these charges of sexism and unfairness toward Hillary?"  He's a smart guy and I thought that would be something we could massage some and arrive at a nuanced form of agreement.  He didn't answer that question, though.  He went straight for the Hillary/Ickes talking points.  There wasn't one point on which we could agree.  From he'll-lose-Ohio/Penn/Fla to whether and how Michigan and Florida votes should be counted to it's-basically-tied-and-she-won-the-popular-vote.  He couldn't even agree that Barack ran a good campaign.

And look at Michael McCord's piece in this morning's Portsmouth Herald on the attacks Martha Fuller Clark sustained for supporting Obama in the rules committee meeting: http://www.seacoastonline.com/...

Leave aside the merits of every point (Hillary's obviously right about the challenge Obama faces in certain demographics, for instance), we cannot be confident of a reconciliation on the way to November.

When you look at what Hillary is saying day to day and the tone in which it is amplified and elaborated upon by Harold Ickes and then you hear those very words in the mouths of sane and articulate friends, you know you've got a problem.

Matt Stoller's point in Open Left about how the candidates exercise their power to "imprint" their supporters is a good one: http://www.openleft.com/showDi... .  Our views, at this point in a long battle, seem to be more rooted in our loyalties more than analysis.

Clearly, reconciliation is entirely in Hillary's hands.  Barack looks to be trying to do his part (though I'm not entirely sure why he couldn't have given up 4 more Michigan delegates) and he'll have to learn fast how to do more to reach across the divides.  But if Barack wins, it's Hillary's supporters who have to be able to find merit in him and it looks to me as if it's only Hillary who can lead them there.  I really do understand the point that he must earn it (he says, anticipating the commentary), but if Hillary doesn't show people the way, they may well not make the trip.

That's her leverage, and it's big.  And we may find that the price she extracts is big.  But in a race that will be tough under the best of circumstances, where the stakes are unimaginably high, Barack is going to have to do whatever it takes to get her full throated support.

My friend did enthusiastically agree to work for Carol Shea-Porter.

Making PTSD and TBI a Priority for Congress

by: Bill Duncan

Sun May 25, 2008 at 06:47:07 AM EDT

I'll start posting on this and on our candidates' positions and accomplishments so that we can be sure that voters will get it when the time comes, but for the moment, don't miss this piece in today's Times, "The Sargent Lost Within", a heartbreaking case study about what we're putting our service members through.

For the same story from another angle, see Michael McCord's piece about Jim Alty of Dover, a Vietnam vet who fights every day to get vets treatment for PTSD: http://www.seacoastonline.com/...

May 27 Update This article in the NYT for Memorial Day is another snapshot of PTSD in one person's life: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05... .  I'll keep adding these here as I see them.

Obama/McCain exchanges in GI Bill show the power of the issue

by: Bill Duncan

Fri May 23, 2008 at 06:02:54 AM EDT

First, Barack's May 12th West Virginia speech, one of the most inspired and grounded statements of commitment to veterans issues you'll ever see: http://thepage.time.com/obamas... .  Toward the end, he hits McCain for not supporting the Webb GI bill.

Here's McCain's response, launched within hours: http://thepage.time.com/mccain... .  Self-righteous, Ad hominum, random, incoherent, gotcha mischaracterizations of votes, and notable for its lack of defense for McCain's position.

Then yesterday, Barack criticized McCain on the Senate floor for opposing the GI bill: http://blog.washingtonpost.com...

McCain shot back in a rage (from who knows where - he skipped the vote), http://thepage.time.com/mccain... , attempting to belittle and patronize. There's a lot of biography and misrepresentation of the differences between the Webb bill and the McCain alternative.

Challenge on vets' issues cuts him to the quick and releases the angry man in there.  We'll continue to see this attempt to dismiss Obama as a naif wandering in among the grownups in military and foreign policy and other issues in the campaign, but vets issues will bring out the distilled fury.

May 24 Update Yesterday's exchange.  Obama says he doesn't understand why McCain would oppose the GI bill  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24...

McCain responds with a non sequitor: http://thepage.time.com/mccain...

May 24 Update 2 Obama laying out his veterans program (somewhat dryly) in San Juan

May 27 Update Steve Benen does a great piece pulling together various threads on McCain's vulnerability on vets' issues and Barack's apparent intention to make it a central issue of the campaign: http://www.thecarpetbaggerrepo... He cites others in looking at McCain's legislative history in some detail.  

Sununu votes FOR the Webb GI Bill but McCain Skips Out

by: Bill Duncan

Thu May 22, 2008 at 13:59:33 PM EDT

The vulnerable John Sununu voted for it, less than a week after he voted against it and provided an elaborate rational for doing so.  It was YOUR calls and letters that did it, folks.  He must have felt he had no choice.

To win that big a majority, without John McCain, is the best of both worlds.  Maybe the president won't veto.  And maybe, if he does, we'll find the votes in the House, as elwood suggests, even without McCain's support.

Actually, I think we're seeing how little influence McCain actually has.

A Key Day in the Presidential Campaign

by: Bill Duncan

Thu May 22, 2008 at 06:05:45 AM EDT

Barack Obama, everyone knows, is definitely not a vet.  And he's had a hard time reaching that large, important constituency.

But here's what they don't know: John McCain is lousy on vets' issues and Barack Obama is great.  Obama's been an active member of  the Veteran's Affairs Committee, developing a deep understanding of the issues and a heartfelt commitment to vets, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan vets.  Here's his "Sacred Trust" speech from last August: http://www.barackobama.com/200... And here's his West Virginia speech from a couple of weeks ago: http://thepage.time.com/obamas...

The Senate is scheduled to take up the emergency war funding bill and the Webb GI bill today.  This well crafted program enables the 75% of service members who get out after their initial enlistment and possibly several tours in Iraq to go to college and retool their skills for civilian life.

John McCain and the administration have opposed the bill with bogus arguments about retention and transferability (see my past posts).  The real reason is to hide the costs of war.  If he persists in his cynical opposition to the Webb bill, this will be a key moment in the presidential campaign.  He will have provided Barack (and us) with Exhibit A of a much larger case to a core McCain constituency that Barack is the real patriot who cares about vets and their families and communities.

Then it's up to us.