I get around the progressive blogosphere and have encountered much consternation against Obama over various issues recently.  He is not fighting FISA at an acceptable level.  He is screwing up by advocating that religion take a role in fighting poverty.  He is trying to hard to "move to the center".  Going further back there were complaints about his AIPAC pandering, his healthcare plan, and a number of other things.  I agree with many of the criticisms.  I understand the concern and outrage.  But Obama is not the problem I see here.

Do you live in or near Ohio?  Are you interested in making sure this Midwestern swing state gets colored blue in all of the network maps on November 4?  The Obama campaign has announced its latest action in its effort to make Ohio more Democratic at the presidential level.  This action may also make Ohio more Democratic in the House delegation as well as for other races downticket.  If you are interested in helping this effort, read below the fold for details.

George Fearing for Congress
Please subscribe to my diary if you live in Central Washington or follow the race in WA-04.  Thanks!


Soon I'll write in greater detail about why George is such an excellent candidate for Congress, and there are some great diaries already out there about why Richard "Doc" Hastings is as bad as they get, and why it's in the national interest to unseat him.

Keep your eyes posted for some entries from Mr. Fearing himself in the coming weeks.  For now, for the skeptics and the pessimists, have a look at some of the many reasons why this race is VERY competitive -- much more so than Republicans would like to admit.

But trust me.  The Hastings crew is getting nervous.  We've seen folks drive by or even sit in their cars in front of the office, peering in.  They've mentioned us in a fundraising letter.  It's clear that Doc's campaign knows that we will fight for this.  And this year, we can win.

After the jump.

I have watched, and even participated in, some of the ongoing arguments on Obama.  For some, like Kos, it is about not rewarding bad behavior.  For me, it is about not supporting someone who is so careless about our Constitution and not putting up a fight.

I continue to make a point that is continually disregarded and ignored; who is in the office of President doesn't matter if any President has the same ability and mechanisms for abuse available to them.

So, let's say we don't fight about this anymore.  Let's say that we all join in a circle, sing songs while holding hands, and turn our heads away from the facts.  What do we have to lose?

A Brief Compendium of Dirty Fucking Hippy© Values

This is just a short look at my values and what issues I find important.

This election season finds America bitterly divided, and I don't just mean rightwingers versus the Left.

I mean that even the Democratic party, as much as MOST of it wants "unity" in the quest for electoral dominance in November and beyond, has some rather deep rifts.

What I mean specifically is a sort of dividing line that has cropped up recently, as far as I am aware.

The Proverbial "Center" is THE only path to assured ascendancy to the Presidency of the United States of America. Yes It Is.

The bow-tied bloviators have said so repeatedly for the past 8 years, and , two blown Presidential elections and numerous mid-term defeats thereafter, the "experts" are still saying it.

They would know.

I'm announcing my candidacy, right here, right now on Big Orange, the site that has done more to change politics & change America than any other.  Anyway, it is an elected (but unpaid) position but this is true grass roots politics.  I'm running to be the Ward 6 Committeeman for the Democratic State Committee on the DC for Obama endorsed Obama4UnityBeats McCain slate in the District of Columbia, http://www.obama4unitybeatsmccain.co...  The petitions will be filed on Wednesday.  The election is on September 9 as part of the DC Democratic Primary.  For some reason we are doing the primary for local offices seperately from the presidential primary, held on Feb. 12.  The DC Democratic State Committee is the governing body of the local Democratic Party.

There seems to be much consternation on DKos that some on the left are criticizing Obama on FISA. Obama has always been a mainstream Democrat, and always cautious about taking positions that will move him him out of that center. His speech in 2002 against the Iraq war is exceptional precisely because it came from a politician  right smack in the political center.

The Right Wing claim that Obama is the most Liberal Senator is  silly. Hello..?Feingold? Saunders? Among the Presidential contenders, was Obama more liberal than Kucinich? I supported Obama not because he was the one I agreed with most, but because he was the most talented candidate and I agreed about 80% with him. That is a pretty high percentage. You don't get 100%  in politics.

So of course, we will lobby Obama on an issue of importance to us. Obama is running a new kind of campaign with  new tools for feedback from his supporters. Such as his website. We must take advantage of those tools. But always keeping in mind that this is not the only issue that matters to us. We lobby him as supporters, not by threatening to abandon him or work for the other side. Leave that sort of idiocy to the PUMAs and the Naderites.

I come from a very Republican family.  How Republican was it?  Well, one grandfather was a Bircher, who subscribed to The Plain Truth and seriously argued that Dwight Eisenhower (even though a Republican) was secretly a communist.  When I came out against the Vietnam War, he told me in front of all the family that I should be put up against a wall and shot.  My other grandfather was an oil man and true to his class.  I once told him that I favored a girl of Japanese extraction.  He told me that if I married her, she and my kids would have to eat in the garage when we came to visit.  We're talking extremophiles like you rarely see any more.

My father was also in the oil business.  My brother was a corporate lawyer for Texaco.  My stepfather was vice president in charge of legal affairs for Getty Oil.  As a kid, before my father started drinking, I won swimming tournaments at the country club in Dallas.  We're talking very, very Republican.

The times they are a-changin', however.

[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]

However much I am displeased with the agenda and behavior of Senator Barack Obama at times there is no doubt that, in his way, he seeks progressive incremental solutions is a classic liberal governance worldview.  The "new" in this framework is the Millennial Generation agenda, devoid of Vietnam and Watergate and raging cultural tactics based upon sexism and racism, but more critically in my mind is absent fear as a motivating tactic.

Senator John McCain, however, is a classic right-wing authoritarian, as outlined so brilliantly by the incomparable Sarah Robinson of The Big Con.  Authoritarian intellectual structures inherently defy change, the Republican Party is full of big oil interests who won’t even acknowledge global warming, for instance, let alone help to solve it.  These general characteristics alone garner an instant vote for Senator Barack Obama, irrespective of any other single variable.

I posted a shorter version of this diary in icebergslim's "Reunited and it Feels So Good."  Thanks, sun dog, for the encouragement to turn my comments into a diary.

Despite the summer humidity (which threatened rain as we piled onto buses after the event) the experience was incredibly cool.

The Democratic candidates, the Democratic party, the netroots - all claim that while the Republican party does not provide the policies that most people want, that the Democratic party does. That voters are switching to the Democratic party because of what we offer.

Except not. The actions of our candidates, the actions of our party - both scream out that they believe that the voters do not want what we represent. And actions speak much louder than words. We crucify the Republicans for saying one thing and then doing something different - but we are guilty of the same sin.

Let’s get this out of the way first: Senator Obama’s opponent in the democratic primary, Senator Clinton, has conceded the race, endorsed Obama, and is now working to help get him elected.  She and the many millions of people who supported her during the primary have been making the adjustment over the last several weeks and it’s going well.  This week Clinton returned to a warm and enthusiastic welcome in the senate, and we here in New York are delighted to have her back at work for us and for the country.  Today in New Hampshire Michelle Obama acknowledged the American people’s debt to Senator Clinton, and thanked her especially for the attention the senator brought to women’s issues during her campaign.  We hear tonight that Senator Obama is donating the maximum to Senator Clinton’s primary campaign and urging his backers to help out too.

Party unity as to the candidates and their supporters is coming along nicely, which is a good thing, because Senator Obama will in fact need Senator Clinton’s support in the months ahead.

There has been quite a lot of critical commentary, here and elsewhere in the blogosphere, about what appears to be Barack Obama's move to the political center, now that the general election season has begun. While it may be a bit hard to stomach seeing Obama offering his qualified qualified support for the death penalty, seeing him have his own  Sister Souljah moment, and his going against his own better judgement on FISA, to me, none of this suggests that Obama has become a Blue Dog or a DLC'er; it's simply smart politics.

This is, of course, not to say that I am happy with the idea of granting immunity to telecom companies. About this, I am deeply unhappy. And that unhappiness is directed primarily at the leadership of the Democratic Party. That means you, Nancy, Steney, Harry and company.

This is good news indeed, as Nancy Pelosi has proven to be a miserable failure as a House Speaker. That was no surprise of course, but still.

Break on through to the other side for some of the article and further commentary:

Cross-posted from OH-16: John Boccieri for U.S. Congress:

If you live in Ohio's Fighting 16th and want to meet our Democratic Champion, time is running out to RSVP for this huge event!

I talked with Ian Walton, Boccieri's Campaign Manager, at Headquarters yesterday afternoon and it is time to push, going into the end of the quarter. We led the (r)candidate 2 to 1 in the money race last quarter and now is not the time to let up. Hope to meet you there!

Details below the fold...

Kos rightfully praises Obama's party building here.

But party building is not just an opportunity to get more Democrats.

It's not just an opportunity to get better Democrats.

It's an opportunity to get a better Democratic Party.

The best way to get the Democratic Party you want, is to be the Democratic Party.

During my years at NYU, I would venture down to Chess Shop every so often and get my rear and its estimated rating of about 700 kicked until it was all red and sore by players left and right, young and old, lucid and not-so-much (God bless all of them).  I can count on one hand how many times I've won over a period of eight years.

That's not the point.  The point is how I played, once my position was lost and resignation was the smart thing to do.  Once I was clearly losing, I played on, determined to force my opponent to take as many moves as necessary to force mate.  I would take all but one moment shy of being bothersome before moving.  I would count to fifty the number of non-pawn moves and non-captures my opponent made.  I would utter these ridiculous one-liners to express my frustration ("yes, that move was definitely not worth the book deal").

I did all of that, because I knew it was too late.  I didn't feel like admitting defeat.  I just dug myself into a deep hole because that was the only way I would allow my opponent to win.  But I always knew it was too late.

Sometimes, that's how I feel about the liberalism in American politics.