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News :: Elections & Legislation |
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Barack Obama Draws Large, Enthusiastic Crowd as Campaign Heats Up |
Current rating: 0 |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
03 Aug 2004
Modified: 10:36:48 AM |
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Fresh from his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, US Senate candidate Barack Obama drew a sizable crowd to the Illini Union this morning. |
Fresh from his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, US Senate candidate Barack Obama drew a standing room only crowd to the Illini Union this morning. Before an approximately 500 person crowd, Obama was interuppted numerous times by applause.
It was obvious that the University of Chicago constitutional law scholar and present Illinois state senator has the unique mix of talent and progressive message that is likely to take him far. Speaking in plain langauge, Obama spoke in favor of a Living Wage, access to affordable healthcare for every American, protection of Social Security and other retirement benefits, and a foreign policy that takes advantage of our progressive heritage, instead of Bush's hubris, by working together with the world community for a safer, more peaceful world.
Obama declared that it is wrong for "people who put in 20, 30 years worth of work into building up shareholder wealth to have the rug pulled out from under them and suddenly having to compete with their teenage kids for $7 an hour jobs... there's something in us that says that's not what America is supposed to be about."
The candidate for US Senate effectively articulated the fact that progressive values are mainstream American values, calling for "a politics where elected officials are attacking problems, instead of each other...that there are more things binding us together, than pushing us apart." Elementary, high school, and college students, union members, and the elderly in wheelchairs were among those who crowded the room as Obama reminded them that they were "the most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen." He asked for their support between now and the November election to register new voters, bring people together, and ensure a turnout that "makes sure our collective lives reflect our values, not just our private lives."
Members of the crowd surged forward at the end of Obama's speech eager to shake his hand and exchange a few words as he worked his way through the reception line. Those in attendance reflected the broad support for him that led to his primary win in a crowded field of seven Democratic primary challengers that competed for the Senate seat that Republican Peter Fitzgerald is vacating. The Republicans are scheduled to select a candidate today to face Obama after their primary winner dropped out of the race due to questions about his past behavior. Whoever the Republicans choose faces a nearly impossible task in running against Obama. It is rumored that they will choose a candidate primarily with an eye toward giving him/her visibility to run in upcoming state government races in two years time, another area where the Republicans have stumbled badly in Illinois.
The racially diverse crowd of black, brown, and white faces all shared grins of elation as they looked at the man they feel will most likely be the next Senator from Illinois, only the third African-American senator since chattel slavery passed from the American scene. Also present in the room and contrasting with the many Democratic Party operatives were a number of local progressives, whose support for the Senate candidate was clear, even though many are skeptical of other parts of the Democratic ticket. That Obama can bring them all together is a sign that the conservative tide of the last quarter-century is rapidly failing, leading to hope that a solid win by a progressive Democrat will give a boost to their efforts to reclaim our country for the people, instead of for profit. |
Related stories on this site:
Eisenhower's 1956 Message Lost on Today's Misguided Republican Party
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Re: Barack Obama Draws Large, Enthusiastic Crowd as Campaign Heats Up |
by JK
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
03 Aug 2004
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Having also attended the Obama event this morning, I concur with ML's observations. Obama's ability to connect with people rests largely in his ability to speak eloquently without sounding high-brow, to speak plainly without sounding simplistic, and unlike our current slack-jawed president, to speak from the heart. I think this, in addition to his progressive politics, is why Obama's appeal crosses both racial and class lines. Obama's own background and experiences, and his ability to convey their significance, closely parallel those of many millions of Americans who, despite working long hours, expending arduous effort at work and raising families, and striving for better more secure lives, still face insecurities and privation.
Although it remains to be seen whether conservatism is waning (I certainly hope so), I definitely see signs that progressivism is on the rise, providing a stronger political and ideological flank to liberalism than we have seen in some time. In addition to Obama's impending election to the Senate, Cynthia McKinney seems certain to return to Congress after winning the Democratic primary in her Georgia district. Also, Dr. David Gill, who is mounting a strong challenge to GOP incumbent Tim Johnson for the local House seat, holds progressive positions on the war in Iraq, health care, and education. Who knows, perhaps in several years we may also be discussing the decline of the DLC, the semi-Republican flank that has dominated the Democratic party in recent years. |
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2 Black Republican Candidates Vie to Challenge Obama |
by AP
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
04 Aug 2004
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Keyes jumps into Moore's mosh pit, Jan. 23, 2000, in Des Moines, Iowa. Moore kept his word and endorsed the long-shot, conservative Republican candidate, but it was George W. Bush who won the White House. (Photo: AP)
CHICAGO (AP) -- Illinois Republican leaders asked two-time presidential hopeful Alan Keyes on Wednesday to be their Senate candidate, but like a string of previous possibilities, Keyes said he needed a few days to think about it.
Keyes told a news conference Wednesday night that he would make an announcement by Sunday.
``If I do step forward to pick up that challenge, I will be laying a lot on the line in terms of what I have tried to do in this country,'' he said.
It's been a laborious six-week search as Republicans have sought a candidate willing to tackle the daunting task of taking on Democratic rising star Barack Obama in the Senate race.
Republican primary winner Jack Ryan dropped his bid amid embarrassing sex club allegations that surfaced when records from his divorce were unsealed in June.
With Keyes and Obama as the candidates, the already closely watched race to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Peter Fitzgerald would draw more national attention: It would be the first U.S. Senate election with two black candidates representing the major parties, almost assuring Illinois would produce only the fifth black U.S. senator in history.
``I think it's a hopeful sign for the country,'' Obama said Wednesday. ``I think obviously when we have 100 U.S. senators and none are African-American, that's something that doesn't just trouble African-Americans, I think it troubles all Americans.''
But Keyes' response that he needed time to consider the offer, and likely talk to national Republican leaders about financial help, was an uneasy echo of the party's experience with previous potential candidates. Party leaders have tried to enlist several big-name candidates -- former governors, state senators, even Chicago Bears great Mike Ditka -- but each ultimately declined.
Obama, a state senator, has a huge head start: He has raised more than $10 million, has drawn thousands of people to campaign stops and gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention last week.
Keyes, a two-time presidential hopeful, hadn't even surfaced as a possible contender until early this week. He missed the scheduled candidate interviews Tuesday, but when the committee narrowed its choices to two that night, Keyes was still in.
As he arrived from Maryland for his first face-to-face interview with the committee Wednesday, Keyes didn't directly say he wanted to run -- he said he was there to consult with the party's leadership about the best way to make sure there was an exchange of ideas.
Asked how he felt about making a Senate run from a state he had never lived in, he responded: ``As a matter of principle, I don't think it's a good idea.
``It has to be something where I would be convinced it's not only consonant with federalism as I understand it but that it's in the best interest of the state and of the nation,'' Keyes said.
The other finalist interviewed Wednesday was Andrea Grubb Barthwell, a Chicago-area physician and former deputy drug czar in the Bush administration who has little campaign experience and allegations in her past that she had made ``lewd and abusive'' comments about a colleague's sexual orientation while in Washington.
Barthwell, who has contributed to Democratic candidates, and Keyes are on nearly opposite ends of the Republican Party spectrum.
Keyes, 53, opposes abortion and gay rights, wants to replace the income tax with a national sales tax, thinks parents should be able to send their children to schools that reflect their faith and calls affirmative action a ``government patronage program.''
Keyes has a Ph.D. from Harvard in government affairs, was appointed ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council by President Reagan and served as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs before deciding to run for office.
When he first ran for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Maryland in 1988, he also stepped in as the Republican candidate after the primary winner withdrew. Keyes ended up getting only 38.2 percent of the vote.
He did even worse in 1992, when he tried to unseat Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., amid grumbling by some voters that he had been paying himself a salary out of campaign funds.
But Keyes also is a polished speaker who hosted a syndicated radio show in the 1990s and has frequently appeared as a political commentator.
For the Illinois GOP, having a candidate with high name recognition is vital.
``When Barack Obama got put on a national stage ... suddenly this race took on a greater significance than just the state of Illinois,'' said Kirk Dillard, a members of the Republican State Central Committee that picked Keyes.
The party has less than three months to get its new candidate's name and believes before voters ahead of the Nov. 2 election. Keyes' out-of-state status is more likely to be a campaign issue than a legal issue: State law requires only that he be an Illinois resident by Election Day.
Although both Keyes and Barthwell are black, members of the Republican State Central Committee that chose the candidate said race wasn't the important factor. The committee wanted ``somebody who appeals to a broad spectrum of voters,'' co-chairman Stephen McGlynn said.
Illinois Republicans Pick Keyes in Senate Race
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois Republican leaders on Wednesday chose failed presidential candidate Alan Keyes to wage an uphill campaign against popular Democrat Barack Obama in the race for a Republican-held U.S. Senate seat.
Keyes, a former State Department official and conservative talk-show host who lives in Maryland, said he would consider the ``serious offer'' and make his decision about whether to accept on Sunday.
A replacement was needed after the Republican nominee, stockbroker-turned-teacher Jack Ryan, withdrew June 25 because of a sex scandal.
After two days of interviews of more than a dozen prospective candidates and hours of debate, the Republican party's 19-member central committee settled on the 53-year-old Keyes over Andrea Barthwell, the former deputy director of the White House drug czar's office.
After being named a finalist on Tuesday and spending a day in Chicago being interviewed, Keyes appeared uncertain.
``I think that a serious offer of this kind ... requires that I sit down and deliberate on what I can do ... for Illinois and the people of Illinois but also do for this country, and that's what I'll be thinking about,'' he told reporters.
Whoever takes on the telegenic Obama, a previously little-known state senator and Harvard-trained law professor, will have an uphill fight, political analysts say.
Illinois has tilted toward Democratic candidates in recent years and Obama, 42, was heavily favored to take the seat held by Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald, who is retiring after a single term. Democrats see the seat as a likely turnover in the closely fought battle for control of the Senate.
Obama gained stature with his enthusiastically received keynote address at last week's Democratic National Convention.
Both Keyes and Obama are African-American, so if Keyes runs the chamber would be assured of getting its third black member since the 19th Century.
Keyes, a former radio talk-show host who would have to move to Illinois before election day on Nov. 2, previously criticized Hillary Clinton when she moved to New York to run for the U.S. Senate.
Keyes has never won an election, having been defeated in campaigns for the U.S. Senate in Maryland in 1988 and 1992. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for president in 1996 and 2000. |
See also:
http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2004/05/10/in_depth_showbiz/photoessay616608_0_7_photo.shtml
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Illinois Senate Candidate Barack Obama's Got Green Cred |
by Amanda Griscom
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
05 Aug 2004
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As if America needs one more reason to fall in love with Barack Obama.
Beyond the unabashed idealism, stirring oratory skills, touching life story, and knee-buckling smile that have made this candidate for Illinois' open Senate seat the new beau ideal of progressive politics, it so happens that this guy is a bona fide, card-carrying, bleeding-heart greenie.
And it's not as though Muckraker didn't rifle through his environmental record going back more than a decade to try to find something off-kilter -- some skeleton in the closet, some flaw to make him a mere mortal. But all we found were accolades and evidence of true conviction.
Obama's comments at the League of Conservation Voters' pro-Kerry rally last week -- made only hours before he delivered the convention speech that catapulted him onto the national stage and elicited comparisons to Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy -- brought enviros to their knees.
"Environmentalism is not an upper-income issue, it's not a white issue, it's not a black issue, it's not a South or a North or an East or a West issue. It's an issue that all of us have a stake in," Obama shouted. "And if I can do anything to make sure that not just my daughter but every child in America has green pastures to run in and clean air to breathe and clean water to swim in, then that is something I'm going to work my hardest to make happen."
The crowd went bananas in response to this call for unity across ethnic and socio-economic lines, as though they'd been waiting for exactly this kind of dynamic leader to free environmentalism from the perception that it's predominately a white upper-middle-class issue.
Obama's environmental activism stretches back to his undergrad days at Columbia University, during which he did a three-month stint with a Ralph Nader offshoot organization trying to convince minority students at City College in Harlem to recycle. Later, when he worked as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, he fought for lead abatement in the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood.
After getting a law degree from Harvard, Obama became a civil-rights lawyer and then in 1996 was elected to the Illinois state senate, representing the 13th district on Chicago's South Side, where he distinguished himself as a leader on environmental and public-health issues. In 2003, Obama was one of six state senators to receive a 100 Percent Environmental Voting Record Award from the Illinois Environmental Council.
His efforts on behalf of the environment have been so consistent and comprehensive, in fact, that LCV and the Sierra Club endorsed Obama in his bid for Congress this year over half a dozen other Democrats competing in the primary. Last month, the LCV named him a 2004 Environmental Champion, one of 18 sitting and prospective members of Congress to receive the award.
Obama is "by far one of the most compelling and knowledgeable politicians on the environment I've ever sat in a room with," Mark Longabaugh, senior vice president for political affairs at LCV, told Muckraker. "I've been playing national politics for more than 20 years and I quite literally can't remember one person I've met -- even on a national level -- who was more in command of facts, more eloquent, and more passionate on these issues than Sen. Obama."
Obama's commitment to environmental protection has a personal component: His six-year-old daughter, Malia, has chronic asthma, a fact he often cites when defending the long list of initiatives he has pushed to clean up smog and air pollution in his state. And many of his constituents suffer from the same condition. "More people die from asthma attacks in Chicago than anywhere else in the country," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago. "And Illinois has the highest African-American death rate from asthma in the country -- four times the national average."
This year, Obama made an aggressive move to stem the tide of pollution from Illinois' coal plants -- which produce nearly 50 percent of the state's electricity -- by introducing a bill that would in effect block the Bush administration's rollback of the Clean Air Act's new-source review rules from being carried out in his state. "This is a very complex issue, but Obama took it by storm," Urbaszewski told Muckraker. "He dove headfirst into all the complexities and wouldn't quit until he had a solution."
According to Jack Darin, who, as director of the Sierra Club's Illinois chapter, has worked with Obama closely on these issues, "He's an incredibly quick study. He's not a scientist, but remarkably adept at analyzing the details of complex environmental issues, asking the right details, and ultimately making the right policy decision for public interest."
To build support for cleaner air, Obama opened a dialogue with the coal-mining industry about how better pollution controls on power plants could help create new markets for Illinois coal. Most of the coal now being burned in Illinois comes from Wyoming and other Western states, which has hurt the Illinois coal industry. But Illinois coal is cleaner in terms of pollutants such as mercury. Obama argued that cracking down on mercury pollution from coal-fired plants would give Illinois coal a competitive advantage over Western coal.
"Most politicians have forever played the interests of the coal industry and the environment against each other," said Darin, "but Obama found a way to argue soundly that we can put mine workers back to work while making the air cleaner."
Obama has taken on energy matters in Illinois as aggressively as air-quality protection. As state senator, he is cosponsoring a pending measure that would require 10 percent of the electricity generated in the state to come from renewable sources by 2012, and he supports another pending bill that would tighten energy-efficiency codes in residential and commercial buildings.
And Obama is making energy independence one of the top three priorities in his campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate, according to his spokesperson, Robert Gibbs. He has pledged to endorse legislation that would require 20 percent of America's power supply to be generated by renewable sources by 2020, as well as regulations that would boost Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards to 40 miles per gallon for cars.
The list doesn't stop there. Obama has fought for tougher standards on diesel engines, waged battles against urban sprawl and the destruction of Illinois' wetlands, and mobilized residents in Chicago's lowest-income neighborhoods to block toxic dumping in their communities.
It's particularly notable that Obama has gone out on a political limb to advance environmental protections. "Illinois is a heavily industrial state, and a tough place for environmentalists and other progressives," said Darin. "Illinois is a state that has no limits on campaign financing, meaning the special interests are well entrenched." But Obama has never capitulated, said Darin, and for most of his time in the state senate, he has been in the minority, arguing against the political grain with surprising success.
Nothing could better prepare him for the current scene in Washington, D.C.
© 2004, Grist Magazine, Inc.
http://www.gristmagazine.com |
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Obama's Drama and Our Dreams |
by Clarence Page
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
06 Aug 2004
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A superstar is born. It is difficult for many of us to contain our enthusiasm for Barack Obama, yet we must try. We owe that to him. We should not reward his blockbuster performance last week at the Democratic National Convention by loading his shoulders with the fate of the nation. Not yet, anyway. That can wait, perhaps until, say, his 2012 presidential campaign?
For now, Illinois' self-described "skinny guy from the South Side of Chicago with the funny name" offers an inspiring glimpse of what America's next generation of black leadership could look like -- a leadership that is not for blacks only.
After a tidal wave of advance publicity, many wondered whether Mr. Obama, the 42-year-old Illinois state senator running for the U.S. Senate, could meet the challenge of delivering the convention's keynote speech. No problem. He knocked that ball out of the park. Journalists rushed to their thesauruses to find enough superlatives to describe him, and Mr. Obama skyrocketed to historic figure, the quintessential crossover candidate, a Colin L. Powell for the party of the Revs. Jesse L. Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Mr. Obama is not a conservative, yet conservatives would be hard-pressed to find much in his speech with which to disagree. Well-crafted, it rose above the usual political pep talk to echo the all-American voice of liberal patron saint Martin Luther King Jr.
Shortly before his 1968 assassination, Dr. King preached, "Let us be dissatisfied until there is no black power, until there is no white power, but there is only God's power and human power."
Mr. Obama brought Democrats to their feet with, "Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.
"The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."
Mr. Obama's forceful baritone delivery adds a special resonance to those come-together sentiments because his life is an epic narrative of the American Dream on the brink of a new multiracial and multicultural century.
His white mother was from Kansas and his father was a goatherd from Kenya who came to Hawaii on scholarship and later graduated from Harvard. Their son, born in Hawaii, and raised partly in Indonesia, became the first black president of Harvard Law Review and teaches law at the University of Chicago. "It's a typical biography for an Illinois politician," he joked on NBC's Meet the Press.
Twenty years after The Wall Street Journal tagged Chicago as "Beirut on the Lake" for its racially divisive politics, Mr. Obama's huge victory over a seven-person field in this year's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate shows a progress for which all Illinois residents should feel proud. It also has sparked a national excitement about Mr. Obama among Americans of all races who want their chance to feel similarly proud.
But with the wise counsel of a savvy attorney -- his wife Michelle -- Mr. Obama seems to be keeping a cool head about everyone else's high expectations. He is as intrigued as I am, he once told me, that Americans always seem to be searching for the next black leader, but he's not going to start measuring curtains in the White House when he hasn't even been elected to the Senate yet.
In his broad outreach, he is trying mightily to fairly represent all constituencies, but with a special sensitivity about issues of great concern to black folks. He has voted for racial-profiling bans, funding for child health care and earned income tax credits. "I try to remind people," he said after his speech, "that I live in the African-American community but I am not limited by it."
Nor should the rest of us impose racial limits on him. That's not always easy. It's hard to suppress the hope that Mr. Obama offers that the American Dream can work for all of America's dreamers.
Copyright © 2004 The Baltimore Sun
http://www.baltimoresun.com/ |
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