Obama's Inner Circle

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Confronting Racism

Confronting Racism Against Obama

A pretty amazing speech by the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka. To see a white union man take on racism this way is very moving. Something truly profound could happen in this election, if we want it to:

Colin Powell

Whatever you think of Colin Powell, in the context of our national discourse, the endorsement of a Republican military figure like Powell is a severe blow to McCain's smear campaign. Among the key points Powell made against McCain's campaign:

* On the Ayers smears: He thoroughly repudiated McCain's "Obama associates with terrorists" smear job.
* On the religion smears: He not only affirmed the fact that Barack Obama is Christian, but he also rejected the idea that it would be a problem if he weren't, defending religious freedom in passionate terms.
* On the "anti-American" smears: He even targeted Michele Bachmann's divisive rant claiming that there are "anti-American" Members of Congress
* On McCain's judgment and readiness: He destroyed the notion that McCain has either the judgment or policy acumen to serve as president, citing McCain's selection of Sarah Palin and his unsteady response to the economic crisis
* On Republican extremism: He slammed the GOP's rightward tilt, specifically noting that it would be unacceptable to nominate two more hard-right justices to the Supreme Court

Powell didn't just decimate the McCain campaign rationale, however. Powell also offered up an endorsement of Barack Obama in the strongest possible terms, saying that Obama would be an "exceptional president" and that he had the capacity to be "transformational."

The amazing part of all this is that Powell still considers himself a Republican. While there will never be an excuse for his role in supporting the Iraq war, one thing does seem clear: Powell's endorsement today will be a boost for Barack Obama's campaign, and therefore a good thing for this country.


Colin Powell Decimates McCain's Rationale
Powell systematically dismantled McCain's entire argument -- and everything he said was true.



Gen. Colin Powell



Colin Powell Eviscerates McCain's Negative Smear Campaign

Gen. Colin Powell

Colin Powell Supports Obama's Views on Diplomacy



Powell Says US Should Not Have Invaded Iraq



Colin Powell and the Palm Tree on MTP




Why retired Generals and Admirals support Barack Obama

States' purges of voter rolls appear illegal

Actions apparently the result of mistakes in complying with 2002 law

By Ian Urbina


Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.

The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run.

Still, because Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, any heightened screening of new applications may affect their party’s supporters disproportionately. The screening and trimming of voter registration lists in the six states — Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina — could also result in problems at the polls on Election Day: people who have been removed from the rolls are likely to show up only to be challenged by political party officials or election workers, resulting in confusion, long lines and heated tempers.

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Obama -The DNC Denver 2008

Sarah Palin's Retrograde Gender Politics

                       Sarah Palin's Retrograde Gender Politics
 
Don't be fooled. Palin is not on the ticket to bring gender balance to the White House. Her primary role is to reinforce traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity. 
 
Courtney E. Martin | September 15, 2008 |  

Observers of contemporary politics, especially those who follow the high drama of presidential campaigns, are plagued by many questions. Most vexing, perhaps, are those concerned with the role of gender in public life. Why is testosterone the coveted elixir of political power? More specifically, what anxieties have made the ‘wimp factor' one of the most important variables in determining the outcomes of elections? First coined in 1988, this phrase…denotes a male candidate's deficient manhood. --Stephen Ducat, The Wimp Factor 

The McCain campaign has spent the last two weeks trying to convince American voters that Sarah Palin is just the jolt of estrogen that the country needs. She has five kids; long, pretty hair; and the teeth-gritting, fist-clenching fierceness of a mother about to pull a car off her toddler. Reuters, in fact, reports that after her deus ex machina appearance at the Republican National Convention, McCain suddenly shot up 12 points ahead of Obama with white women. (He was 8 points behind before the confetti fell in Minneapolis.) 

Palin may have been plucked from obscurity to appeal to women voters who are aching for a maverick in mom's clothing, but don't be fooled. Palin is not on this ticket to bring gender balance to the White House; her primary role is to reinforce the almighty power of traditional masculinity. 

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Lied to, Hoodwinked,Tricked,Bamboozaled

John McCain's ads are LIES. Here's the video proof.



Rachel Maddow: McCain's Latest Slimy Ad On Sex Ed

Conservative South

Historic Moment

Bill Moyers Journal . This is Usury

Barack Obama Talks with Ted Koppel

Unseen interview before his speech at the 2004 DNC .
Here you will see just how capable and skillfull Obama was before he came to the U S Senate. In this interview you can see why in 2008 He is the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States.

Barack Obama Talks with Ted Koppel - part 1

Barack Obama Talks with Ted Koppel - part 1
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Barack Obama Talks with Ted Koppel - part 2

Barack Obama Talks with Ted Koppel - part 2
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Barack Obama Talks with Ted Koppel - part 3

Barack Obama Talks with Ted Koppel - part 3
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Barack Obama Talks with Ted Koppel - part 4

Barack Obama Talks with Ted Koppel - part 4
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The Path To The Nomination

8/25/08

Roger Simon, Politico's chief political columnist, has been a respected name in American
journalism since the 1970s — and an authoritative voice in American politics for just as long.
After the historic contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama finally came to an
end in June, Simon launched an intensive effort to get behind the scenes — and to the bottom —
of what happened and why.
He interviewed scores of well-placed people at all levels of both campaigns, many of whom have
been sources of his for years. This project, which Simon named "Relentless" to reflect what he
saw as the animating spirit of Obama's remarkable campaign, is the result of Simon's two years
of reporting on this campaign, and decades of observing political personalities in action.
– John F. Harris
Introduction: The path to the nomination
By: Roger Simon

August 24, 2008 09:09 AM EST
In the summer of 2006, Patti Solis Doyle offered David Axelrod a job. Hillary Clinton was running for reelection to the Senate and Solis Doyle was her campaign manager, but everybody knew Clinton was soon going to run for president. And Clinton wanted Axelrod onboard.
Axelrod was a highly experienced and successful political consultant and just what Clinton needed. But he declined. Presidential campaigns were mentally taxing, physically exhausting and emotionally draining. There were easier ways to make a buck. Unless. “I wasn’t planning to work in a presidential race,” Axelrod told me, “but if Barack might run, well, he would be the only guy to cause me to get in.”It was not impossible. As early as November 2004, even before his swearing-in to the United States Senate,Barack Obama was having conversations about the possibility of a presidential run in 2008. The conversations were very preliminary, however, just a toe in the water. And Hillary Clinton was not worried.

In May 2006, Clinton herself had interviewed another experienced campaign consultant, Steve Hildebrand, but had turned him down. The time was not right. And she had plenty of time. But it would prove to be a costly mistake. A few months later, Steve Hildebrand would play a key role in persuading Barack Obama to run for president.

Hillary still was not worried. She would put together a great campaign team, a Dream Team. It did not turn out that way. “Happy families are alike,” Leo Tolstoy famously wrote. “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The Hillary Clinton campaign was an unhappy family. I was told by Clinton campaign staffers that Mike Henry, the deputy campaign manager, stalked Clinton headquarters in Ballston, Va., with a baseball bat in his hand. I was told that Patti Solis Doyle stayed in her office watching soap operas and refused to return the phone calls of governors, members of Congress and Bill Clinton. I was told that there were suspicions that Mark Penn, the campaign’s pollster and chief strategist, “cooked the books” in presenting his polling results. (All denied the accusations.) It was that kind of campaign.

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Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Delaware and the presumptive Democratic Party candidate for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, running alongside presumptive Presidential nominee Barack Obama. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and is currently serving his sixth term. Biden has served for the sixth-longest period among current Senators (fourth among Democrats) and is Delaware's longest-serving Senator. He is the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in the 110th Congress. Biden has served in that position in the past, and he has served as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election, but dropped out after the caucuses in Iowa on January 3, 2008. Senator Obama will formally announce Biden's selection as his running mate in Springfield, Illinois on August 23, 2008. Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Joseph R. Biden, Sr. and Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Finnegan. He was the first of four siblings and is of Irish Catholic heritage. He has two brothers, James Brian Biden and Francis W. Biden, and a sister, Valerie (Biden) Owens. The Biden family moved to Claymont, Delaware when Biden was 10 years old, and he grew up in suburban New Castle County, Delaware, where his father was a car salesman. He also loved to play the flute in band, which earned him the nickname, "fleet flutin joe". In 1961, Biden graduated from Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware and, in 1965, from the University of Delaware in Newark, where he double majored in history and political science. He then attended Syracuse University College of Law, graduated in 1968, and was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969. In 1966, while in law school, Biden married Neilia Hunter. They had three children, Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III, Robert Hunter, and Naomi. His wife and infant daughter died in a car accident shortly after he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. His two young sons, Beau and Hunter, were seriously injured in the accident, but both eventually made full recoveries. Biden was sworn into office from their bedside. Persuaded not to resign in order to care for them, Biden began the practice of commuting an hour and a half each day on the train from his home in the Wilmington suburbs to Washington, DC, which he continues to do. In 1977, Biden married Jill Tracy Jacobs. They have one daughter, Ashley, and are members of the Roman Catholic Church. In February 1988, Biden was hospitalized for two brain aneurysms which kept him from the Senate for seven months. Biden's elder son, Beau, was a partner in the Wilmington law firm of Bifferato, Gentilotti, Biden & Balick, LLC and was elected Attorney General of Delaware in 2006. He is a captain in the Delaware Army National Guard, where he serves in the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) Corps. He is set to be deployed to Iraq in October, 2008. Biden's younger son, Hunter, works as a lawyer in Washington, DC, serves on the board of directors of Amtrak, and previously worked in the Commerce Department. Since 1991, Biden has also served as an adjunct professor at the Widener University School of Law, where he teaches a seminar on constitutional law. Biden is a long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which he chaired from 1987 until 1995 and served as ranking minority member from 1981 until 1987 and again from 1995 until 1997. In this capacity, he dealt with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties. While chairman, Biden presided over two of the most contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings: Robert Bork in 1987 and Clarence Thomas in 1991. Biden has been involved in crafting many federal crime laws over the last decade, including the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, also known as the Biden Crime Law. He also authored the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA), which contains a broad array of measures to combat domestic violence and provides billions of dollars in federal funds to address gender-based crimes. In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that the section of VAWA allowing a federal civil remedy for victims of gender-motivated violence exceeded Congress' authority and therefore was unconstitutional. Congress reauthorized VAWA in 2000 and 2005. In March 2004, Biden enlisted major American technology companies in diagnosing the problems of the Austin, Texas-based National Domestic Violence Hotline, and to donate equipment and expertise to it. As chairman of the International Narcotics Control Caucus, Biden wrote the laws that created the nation's "Drug Czar," who oversees and coordinates national drug control policy. In April 2003 he introduced the controversial Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act, also known as the RAVE Act. He continues to work to stop the spread of "date rape drugs" such as Rohypnol, and drugs such as Ecstasy and Ketamine. In 2004 he worked to pass a bill outlawing steroids like androstenedione, the drug used by many baseball players. Biden's legislation to promote college aid and loan programs allows families to deduct on their annual income tax returns up to $10,000 per year in higher education expenses. His "Kids 2000" legislation established a public/private partnership to provide computer centers, teachers, Internet access, and technical training to young people, particularly to low-income and at-risk youth. Biden is also a long-time member and current chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In 1997, he became the ranking minority member and chaired the committee from June 2001 through 2003. When Democrats re-took control of the Senate following the 2006 elections, Biden again assumed the top spot on the committee in 2007. His efforts to combat hostilities in the Balkans in the 1990s brought national attention and influenced presidential policy: traveling repeatedly to the region, he made one meeting famous by calling Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic a "war criminal." He consistently argued for lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims, investigating war crimes and administering NATO air strikes. Biden's subsequent "lift and strike" resolution was instrumental in convincing President Bill Clinton to use military force in the face of systematic human rights violations.[ citation needed ] Biden has also called on Libya to release political prisoner Fathi Eljahmi. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Biden was supportive of the Bush administration's efforts, calling for additional ground troops in Afghanistan and agreeing with the administration's assertion that Saddam Hussein needed to be eliminated. The Bush administration rejected an effort Biden undertook with Senator Richard Lugar to pass a resolution authorizing military action only after the exhaustion of diplomatic efforts. In October 2002, Biden voted for the final resolution to support the war in Iraq. He has long supported the Bush administration's war effort and appropriations to pay for it, but has argued repeatedly that more soldiers are needed, the war should be internationalized, and the Bush administration should "level with the American people" about the cost and length of the conflict. In November 2006, Biden and Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, released a comprehensive strategy to end sectarian violence in Iraq. Rather than continuing the present approach or withdrawing, the plan calls for "a third way": federalizing Iraq and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis "breathing room" in their own regions.

Michelle Obama: First Lady In Training, Mom In Chief

Michelle Obama: First Lady In Training, Mom In Chief
by Maureen


Michelle Obama is everywhere in public, yet it is an illusion. Her schedule packs in photo shoots, campaign events and rounds of interviews on given days that appear in public as part of a carefully crafted plan. Many of the covers and photos publicly seen now were shot in early July. Michelle's mom is her support system. The majority of her time is spent being what she will always be win, lose or draw after the November election, Mom in Chief. Michelle coined that phrase herself after expressly appreciating Jackie Kennedy's outstanding parenting skills. First Lady duties would take an armored stretch limo rumbler seat behind being a driver's seat Mom.

Michelle was hard pressed to wear makeup all the time when first upon the campaign trail. She didn't have time and was famously photographed at the Iowa State Fair in a headband while campaign rivals and media sycophants tried stupidly to twist her words about family and having her home life orderly as a knock against one of America's most drama filled political families, The Clintons. In the Obama household, there is a no whining rule both Sasha, 7, & Malia (10) verified on the famous Access Hollywood family interview. Michelle could share that wise bon mot with the former self-absorbed president who thinks its his God given right to whine incessantly when in front of the cameras about how misunderstood he felt. The national political press prats came unglued when they could not figure out a decades old dap or fist bump between Michelle & Barack the night he became the presumptive Democratic nominee in Minnesota. (Copyright 2008 Essence Magazine / Essence Magazine)

Whining wingnuts and conservative so-called Christians with hate on their lips seized upon Michelle's words to try and scare voters, especially white low income ones that she is not patriotic or other false flags. Michelle Obama's family values are clearly on display with a faithful husband and adorable children with mega schedules of their own. She puts them first. Michelle exudes class, landing on Vanity Fair's World's Best Dressed list, after putting a spark in retailers after co-hosting The View in June. Cindy McCain was considered serviceable enough wearing designer clothes, but not evincing the all important iconic look like Michelle in dominating fashion roundups. Some are convinced the arch of Michelle's eyebrows give her a more stern appearance while others marvel at how well she keeps hearth and home together in the midst of chaos. The lady lawyer is much more than a clotheshorse.

Michelle Obama: Cover Girl, Cover Girl, Cover Girl

John McCain might have a point when he calls Barack Obama a "celebrity candidate." After all, the Illinois Senator is married to one of America's most popular cover girls.

You better be ready for a lot of her in coming days.

Potential first lady Michelle Obama will dominate the pages of three major magazines this month. She'll appear by herself on the cover of Ebony and with her husband, Barack, on the cover of Ladies' Home Journal. And, as the Ticket previously reported, in the pages of Harper's Bazaar, she'll be played by supermodel Tyra Banks.

This past week, Family Obama went to Hawaii for the first time since he sought the presidency. Michelle will be all over the newsstands on covers that will be side by side. The accompanying interviews sound her out about what she would do or propose as First Lady. She knows the general vicinity of helping moms on work life balance issues and kids on being the best they can, but states with bone crushing certainty what is not acceptable.

Michelle Obama: “There are a ton of issues that I care deeply about. But the notion of sitting around the table with a set of policy advisers—no offense—makes me yawn [laughter].

"I like creating stuff. I’d love to be working with young people. I’d love to be having more conversations with military spouses. I’ve learned not to let other people push you into something that fundamentally isn’t you.”

She minces no words about resenting some of the time Barack was not at home, but also speaks to her ways of dealing with it and finding new solutions. However, Mrs. Obama as partner is quick to defend Barack against lies and distortions. Michelle is big on Courage and not giving in to fear and she has her own roots in community organizing and GOTV - Get Out The Vote.

“My father took great pride in helping people have a choice in their lives,’’ she said during a conference call with members of the black press on Wednesday. “I am grateful to him for teaching me about the importance of voting. I remember sitting in people’s kitchens for hours. Sometimes I was bored, but I realized that this was important.”

Michelle Obama hosted Wednesday’s conference call with the Rev. Joseph Lowery, an Obama supporter and civil rights leader, as they kicked off the campaign’s nationwide voter registration efforts in African-American communities.

Nobody knows what publicity hound former supermodel Tyra Banks had flitting about in her head when she arose from her Holiday Express Inn digs and decided to be photographed as a fake First Lady Michelle Obama with a fake President Barack Obama at a fake White House for Harper's Bazaar. When celebrities are trying to imitate real people somewhere the space time continuum suffered a collapse. Michelle has here eyes squarely on the Prize, being the world's greatest Mom, best friends and partner to her husband, Barack Obama. Somewhere in there with the important stuff, Michelle Obama has to squeeze in an inaugural gown as the First Black First Lady and getting a hypoallergenic dog for the kids to romp with on the White House lawn.

For More Articles On Michelle Obama :

* The Real Michelle Obama
* Cool Obama Family Campaigns & Celebrates
* Michelle Obama: Barack Is No Elitist
* Michelle Obama Says Hola in Puerto Rico
* Michelle Obama illuminates husband's vision
* Michelle Obama opens up
* Michelle Obama says husband is the 'Harry Potter parent'
* No ifs or buts, Michelle Obama anticipates life as 'mom-in-chief'

Wordsmiths for Obama: style vs. substance, poetry vs. prose

neo - neocon

June 24th, 2008
Wordsmiths for Obama: style vs. substance, poetry vs. prose

In trying to understand what about Obama appeals so powerfully to his supporters, I’ve decided that some—perhaps even much—of it is style.

He gives a good speech. He has a deep voice. He’s tall. He’s slender. He knows what a dap is. And he can turn a literary phrase.

The latter is the reason some literary folk like him, anyway, by their own report—that’s according to at least two examples of the genre, fiction writer Michael Chabon, and Sam Anderson, who appears to be a book reviewer at New York Magazine, and is the author of the article from which the following excerpts are taken [quotes italicized, with my comments interspersed in regular print]:

Michael Chabon, arguably America’s best line-by-line literary stylist, says he became a proselytizing Obama supporter after reading a particularly impressive turn of phrase in the senator’s second book—a conversion experience that seems, on first glance, inexcusably silly, but on fifth glance might be slightly profound.

No, even on fifth glance, it’s not even slightly profound. It’s profoundly slight.

How much can you tell about a candidate’s fitness to lead a country based on a single clause?

Nothing.

The substance/style debate has been around for centuries—and, like all the other venerable binaries, is probably best considered as a symbiosis. Too often, style is dismissed as merely a sauce on the nutritious bread of substance, when in fact it’s inevitably a form of substance itself. This goes double for the presidency, where brilliant policy requires brilliant public discourse.

Policy can certainly be assisted in being sold to the public by brilliant public discourse, and that can be important—witness the failure of George Bush to do so. The masters were Lincoln and Winston Churchill, and to a lesser degree FDR and Reagan, and Tony Blair in our time. But if the substance isn’t there, the style not only does not substitute for it, but can be dangerously misleading because it can seductively mask the lack of substance with its captivating siren song.

If you can think your way through a sentence, through the algorithms involved in condensing information verbally and pitching it to an audience, through the complexities of animating historical details into narrative, then you can think your way through a policy paper, or a diplomatic discussion, or a 3 A.M. phone call.

Isn’t it pretty to think so? Wordsmiths fancy they could govern quite well, if only they cared to. Neither the skills nor the knowledge base of oration or of writing—especially fiction, although it’s also true of writing in general—are readily transferable to forming and implementing policy, although they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Did Anderson ever watch a tape of Truman giving a speech? He makes McCain look like Churchill. Truman was not good at oration—but he is now thought of as having been a good president although his popularity, like Bush’s, was very low when he left office. Perhaps the latter fact is an indication that good speechmaking is helpful for selling one’s policies and bad speechmaking handicaps a president who is involved in a complex and difficult war, such as the Korean or the Iraq wars.

Style tells us, in a second, what substance couldn’t tell us in a year.

It tells us a lot, indeed—but only about style. It tells us nothing about substance.

Hillary Clinton—not especially known for her oratorical skills—had a much better way of putting it. You might even call her words eloquent—because they happen to have both style and substance:

You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.

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Obama's Brain Trust

Rollingstone.com
Obama's Brain Trust

Obama's Brain Trust

The candidate's handpicked team of top advisers has raised more than $250 million, outmaneuvered the Clintons and created a formidable grass-roots political machine. So why doesn't anyone know their names?

TIM DICKINSON
Posted Jul 10, 2008 8:10 AM

On the June evening in St. Paul when he captured the Democratic nomination, in between shout-outs to his daughters and his grandmother, Barack Obama paid tribute to a political operative most Americans have never heard of. "Thank you to our campaign manager, David Plouffe," Obama said, "who never gets any credit but has built the best political organization in the country."

Obama isn't exactly known for understatement. But in describing the machine that Plouffe and his political team have built, the candidate was actually far too modest. By marrying online technology to grass-roots activism, Obama's brain trust mobilized 1.5 million donors, raised more than $250 million, derailed the Clinton juggernaut and built something new in Democratic politics. "The size and scale and sophistication of the Obama enterprise — it's like a multinational corporation compared to the mom-and-pop nonprofits of previous Democratic campaigns," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the progressive think tank NDN and a veteran of Bill Clinton's 1992 run. "And it isn't just bigger — it's a better model, it's more democratic, it taps into the power and passion of everyday people."

It's also remarkably disciplined: Obama's top advisers outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton's organization with no leaks, no nasty infighting and virtually no public credit for their efforts. By all rights, Plouffe and the other chief architects of Obama's machine should be household names on par with James Carville and Karl Rove. And yet, with the exception of chief strategist David Axelrod, who has emerged as an affably low-key spokesman for the campaign, Obama's brain trust works in near anonymity from the campaign's headquarters on the 11th floor of a smoked-glass skyscraper two blocks south of the Chicago River.

That obscurity is by design. Members of Obama's inner circle are largely unknown to the public because the second rule of the campaign is: All credit accrues to Obama. The first rule? Don't talk about Team Obama. As senior adviser Valerie Jarrett puts it, "We aim for you to not know about the inner workings of the campaign because there's not much to know other than: It works."

The Obama campaign, like the candidate himself, is paradoxical. The same machine that has given unprecedented control to tens of thousands of volunteers at the grass roots has also set a new benchmark in Democratic politics for tight-lipped, Fortune 500 professionalism at its highest rungs. To use a computing metaphor for the Obama machine: The software may be open-source, but the CPU — humming high above Michigan Avenue — remains, quite literally, a black box.

In many ways, this split is a reflection of Obama himself. In public, Obama comes across as a political Superman who can inspire stadium-size crowds of supporters. But behind the scenes, Obama is as mild-mannered as Clark Kent — and he has built his senior team to reflect his quiet, down-to-business self. "The tone starts at the top," says Jarrett. "When Barack walks into the room, there's never tension. And he wanted to make sure that the team he selected was also drama-free. He wanted to make sure that tone permeated the campaign."

The drama-free approach proved to be in sharp contrast to the Clinton campaign, which was beset by leaks and infighting among factions of overbearing strategists (Mark Penn), know-it-all advisers (Harold Ickes), egotistical flacks (Howard Wolfson) and self-important campaign managers (Patti Solis Doyle) who battled noisily — and publicly — over message, budget, access to the candidate and prestige. From Day One, Obama was determined that his campaign would be different. In the winter of 2007, when senior staffers gathered for one of their first meetings in Chicago, the candidate laid out his expectation. "Most campaigns are chaotic," Obama told them. "I want a campaign that is buttoned up like a business. If people have problems, they work it out.It's not a 'we're gonna work this out on page 2 of The Washington Post."
Obama underscored the theme again in June, when he addressed his entire Chicago staff after finally wrapping up the nomination. As he spoke, staffers poked their heads above gray, corporate cubicles in what could easily be mistaken for an E-Trade office rather than a presidential campaign headquarters.

"When I started this campaign," Obama told them, "I wasn't sure that I was going to be the best of candidates. But what I was absolutely positive of was that there was the possibility of creating the best organization. The way great things happen is when people are willing to submerge their own egos and focus on a common task. That's my old organizing mind-set. It's not just a gimmick, it's not just a shtick. I actually believe in it."

The story of how Obama assembled his top advisers — and how he got them to work together as a team — offers a glimpse into his approach as a chief executive who manages an organization of nearly 1,000 employees. Obama has built "an amazingly strong machine," says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, president of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at the Yale School of Management. "People expected a more ad hoc, impromptu, entrepreneurial feel to it. It has been more of a well-orchestrated symphony than the jazz combo we expected."

Indeed, in merging the talents of powerful Washington insiders and outside-the-Beltway insurgents, Obama has succeeded at a task that has traditionally eluded Democratic candidates: forging an experienced inner circle who set aside their differences and put the candidate first. "The whole point is that it's not about any of these guys," says longtime GOP strategist Frank Luntz. "They feel blessed. They see it as how lucky they are to be working for this man, at this time, in this election. This is the dream team for the dream candidate. I waited all my life for a Republican Barack Obama. Now he shows up, and he's a Democrat."


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Michelle Obama is the real personality in the US election drama

Michelle Obama: a woman of humour and daring.


"Obama or McCain," I asked a veteran Washington politico this week? He shrugged; "I don't know. I really don't. What I do know is that we're going to see the racist underbelly of America like we've never seen it before - and it won't be pretty."

It isn't all that pretty now. The preliminary shots are being fired, but not at Barack. Instead, it is his wife Michelle who is on the frontline, for now. The campaign began in the blogosphere, progressed to YouTube via the Right-wing radio shockjocks and talk-show hosts. Now, what Time magazine describes as the "war over Michelle" is out in the open.
She stands accused of being unpatriotic because of a single remark taken out of context back in February. She is being called "Mrs Grievance" on account of what her critics claim is racial chippiness rooted in her disadvantaged background. And she is, of course, guilty of sharing a '"terrorist" fist-bump with her husband on the night he won the Democratic presidential nomination. (That's the same "terrorist" fist bump that Tiger Woods regularly exchanges with his caddy, and that Prince Charles and even the Dalai Lama have indulged in without attracting adverse comment.)
It's not much of a charge sheet, and none of it would matter except that it seems to be getting to Michelle - or rather to her husband's advisers. On a US chat show this week, widely seen as an attempt to "soften" her image, Mrs Obama claimed she wanted to emulate Laura Bush. Why? Mrs Bush, demure and gracious, has always been an admirable consort to the less than admirable Dubya. But for Mrs Obama, 17 years younger and a whole lot feistier and more interesting, to constrain herself in this way would be a betrayal of who she is.

Because Michelle Obama is the only real personality among the four protagonists in this spellbinding drama. Her husband is almost too good to be true, a Democratic spin doctor's fantasy candidate: the multicultural embodiment of hope, aspiration and America's future.
Republican opponent John McCain belongs to the past. In fact, he looks as if he's leapt straight from the embalming table, so shiny is the skin, pink-hued the cheeks and snowy the hair. He's 72 trying to be 52 and it doesn't work, while his heiress wife Cindy has a Stepford-air about her that is rather disturbing.

In contrast, the 44-year-old wife, mother and career woman has a vibrancy the others lack. She loves glamorous clothes and pearls, hates wearing tights, frequently goes shoeless, and occasionally speaks her mind. She has never been an adoring spouse and has no intention of becoming one.
Even her cookie recipe submitted for public appraisal - and on which the suitability of US presidential partners seems to rest - reveals a woman of some humour and daring. In her day, Hillary favoured chocolate chip oatmeal cookies; Laura Bush played safe with an oatmeal chocolate chunk variation, while Cindy went for oatmeal-butterscotch (although she's been accused of copying the recipe from elsewhere). Mrs Obama, meanwhile, prefers shortbread cookies with orange and lemon zest - and a cheeky dash of Amaretto. What's not to like about this woman? She's evaded the make-over thus far - and she doesn't need one now.
'I mean, "whitey"?'

Rightwing US commentators portray Michelle Obama as an 'Angry Black Woman' out to avenge her race. They couldn't be more wrong, she tells Michael Powell and Jodi Kantor

The Guardian, Saturday June 21, 2008

Michelle Robinson Obama's eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile. As her campaign airplane arcs over the Flathead Range in Montana, she is asked to consider her complicated public image.
Conservative columnists accuse her of being unpatriotic and say she simmers with undigested racial anger. A blogger who supported Hillary Clinton circulates unfounded claims that Michelle Obama gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of "whitey". Obama shakes her head.
"You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be," she says. Referring to a character in a 1970s sitcom, she adds: "I mean, 'whitey'? That's something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn't know me. They don't know the life I've lived. They don't know anything about me."
Now her husband's presidential campaign is giving her image a subtle makeover. On Wednesday, she appeared on The View, a daytime talkshow, with Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg, with an eye toward softening her reputation.

Her problems seemed hard to imagine last autumn and winter. Michelle Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, appeared at ease with the tactile business of campaigning and drew praise for humanising, often with humour, a husband who could seem elusive. Then came some rhetorical stumbles. In February, she told voters that hope was sweeping America, adding: "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." Cable news shows replayed those 15 words in an endless loop of outrage [omitting the next line of her speech during that rally in Milwaukee. "And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change," she said].
The caricatures of Michelle Obama as the Angry Black Woman confound her, friends say. Her own family crosses racial boundaries and she has spent much of her adult life confronting and trying to address racial resentment. Obama was among a handful of black people at one of Chicago's most prestigious law firms, and she later ran a project that sought to defuse racial conflict.
But the 44-year-old, known to friends as the Taskmistress, sometimes speaks with a passion and an insistence unusual for a potential first lady. She tells voters, for example, that "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual - uninvolved, uniformed."

She says she intends to evoke a John F Kennedy-like idealism and highlight her own journey, but in her commanding cadences, some people - and not just conservatives - hear a lecture. To appeal to voters who may be put off or not know of her biography, the campaign hopes to display Obama as an ordinary American mom. Shortly before her husband announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, Michelle Obama confided in friends: "Barack and I will cut an unfamiliar figure to most of America, a loving, opinionated upper-middle-class black couple with children."

Michelle Robinson grew up in the black half of a divided Chicago. She and her brother, Craig, lived with their parents on the second floor of a two-storey house - "Two bedrooms, if you want to be generous," she says.
Her father, Frasier, was a pump operator for Chicago's water department and a precinct captain in the Democratic machine. Her mother, Marian, brought workbooks home to keep her children ahead of their classes. The working-class neighbourhood was filled with uncles and grandparents, block associations and overarching oak trees. "We knew the gang-bangers - my brother played basketball in the park," Obama says. "Home never feels dangerous."
In 1981, she left for Princeton, an overwhelmingly white institution that cherished its genteel traditions. She was one of 94 black freshmen in a class of over 1,100. The mother of Catherine Donnelly, a white student [and] one of her roommates, spent months pleading with Princeton to give her daughter a white roommate instead. Obama shrugs now. Some classmates resented black people; some resented affirmative action. "Diversity can't be taken care of with 10 kids," she says. "There is an isolation that comes with that" Black and white students rarely mixed socially. When Crystal Nix Hines became the first black editor of the student newspaper, the Daily Princetonian, some black students wondered why she wanted to run a "white" newspaper. Obama, however, was thrilled that a historic barrier had fallen.

In her senior Sociology thesis, she wrote, "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," and went on to ask, Does immersion in an elite white institution draw black people away from their community?
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1988, Obama took a job at Sidley Austin, a corporate law firm. She had a handsome salary and the prospect of better to come. Then a close friend from college died. So did her father, who had long suffered from multiple sclerosis. "I looked out at my neighbourhood and sort of had an epiphany that I had to bring my skills to bear in the place that made me," she says. "I wanted to have a career motivated by passion and not just money."

Eventually, Obama started the Chicago chapter of a training programme called Public Allies.
She searched for young talent that could transform these rough neighbourhoods, preaching the gospel of the second and third chance. She insisted that the white [university students] work alongside the gang member or the young mother on welfare.
Every Friday, the young people would sprawl around Obama's office, swapping frustrations. Black people accused white people of being clueless. White members said black members masked insecurity with anger. Michelle Obama probed carefully, sometimes turning up the heat before turning it down.
"I hate diversity workshops," she says. "Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable."

By 2001, Obama, married for nine years and the mother of two daughters, had taken a job as vice-president of community affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Centre. She soon discovered just how acrimonious those affairs were.
Hospital brass had gathered to set the foundation stone for a children's wing when black protesters broke in with bullhorns, drowning out the proceedings with demands that the hospital award more contracts to minority firms. Obama strolled over and offered to meet later, if only the protesters would pipe down. She revised the contracting system, sending so much business to firms owned by women and minorities that the hospital won awards.
She also interceded to alter the hospital's research agenda. When the human papillomavirus vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer, became available, researchers proposed approaching local school heads about enlisting black teenage girls as research subjects. Obama stopped that. The prospect of [such a trial] summoned the spectre of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of the mid-20th century, when white doctors let hundreds of black men go untreated for decades to study the disease.

Rather than pulling Michelle Obama behind a curtain, her husband's campaign is pushing her farther out on stage. She remains a charismatic presence, and when she gives her husband a fist bump on stage or talks of him as a father, she is telling voters, this is a regular guy.

In coming weeks, Michelle Obama will unveil a new speech, emphasising her modest background and family ties.
As her airplane descends into a northern Montana valley, she sounds like a woman who wishes she could sit voters down for a long talk. "You know, if someone sat in a room with me for five minutes after hearing these rumours, they'd go 'huh'?" she says. "They'd realise it doesn't make sense."

She extends her long arms, her voice plaintive. "I will walk anyone through my life," she says. "Come on, let's go."

JUNETEENTH National Holiday Observance

Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D., Chairman
National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign
National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF)
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC)
662-247-3364 662-247-1471
e-mail: MyersFound@aol.com
web sites: www.19thofJune.com
www.Juneteenth.us
www.njclc.com


9th Annual WASHINGTON JUNETEENTH National Holiday Observance
Returns to the Nation's Capitol

Congress Urges President Bush to Issue a Presidential Proclamation
Recognizing Juneteenth Independence Day in America

Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D., Chairman of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF) and the National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC), Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Chairman of the National Juneteenth Congressional Committee and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), Senate Host of the U.S. Capitol Juneteenth Congressional Reception, are the invited featured speakers for the 2008 WASHINGTON JUNETEENTH National Holiday Observance

(Washington, DC) - As Senator Barack Obama makes great strides in becoming the nation's next president, Juneteenth supporters are hopeful that the "19th of June" will finally be established as a national holiday observance in America. Senator Barack Obama has been a key sponsor of Juneteenth legislation in the senate and keynote speaker at the annual Juneteenth Congressional Reception.

Juneteenth, or the "19th of June", recognizes June 19, 1865, in Galveston, TX, when Union General Gordon Granger announced freedom for all slaves in the Southwest. This was the last major vestige of slavery in the United States following the end of the Civil War. This occurred more than two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln. Upon the reading of General Order #3 by General Granger, the former slaves celebrated jubilantly, establishing America's second Independence Day Celebration and the oldest African-American holiday observance.

Juneteenth is now recognized as a state holiday or state holiday observance in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Delaware, Idaho, Alaska, Iowa, California, Wyoming, Missouri, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Arkansas, Oregon, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Virginia, Washington, Tennessee, Massachusetts, North Carolina, West Virginia, South Carolina and Vermont. In 2003, the District of Columbia passed legislation to recognize Juneteenth as a district holiday observance. Many more states, including Utah, Alabama, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Montana, Wisconsin and Maryland have recognized Juneteenth through annual state legislative resolutions, Gubernatorial Proclamations and current state holiday observance legislation.

The US Capitol and the White House were built through the uncompensated labor of the ancestors of Americans of African descent during the tyranny of enslavement


Acappella - Lift Every Voice



Wednesday
June 18th Juneteenth 3 Kilometer (1.86 Mile) Run
12noon DC Road Runners Club

Entrance of FDR Memorial
Washington, DC
Thursday
June 19th National Juneteenth Congressional Reception
12:00noon Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Host

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), Co-Host

(Room to be determined!)
U.S. Capitol Building
Washington, DC
Friday
June 20th NATIONAL DAY OF RECONCILIATION & HEALING
FROM THE LEGACY OF ENSLAVEMENT

National Juneteenth Black Holocaust "MAAFA" Memorial Service and National Juneteenth Prayer Service
11:30am Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D., Chairman
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council

"Reading of the Names" (Victims of Lynchings in America)

Presentation of the Dr. James Cameron National Juneteenth Leadership Award
Honoring Dr. James Cameron, Founder
America's Black Holocaust Museum

Poetry by Pierre L. Sutton, Jr. & Kevin Reeves
Gospel Music by Lisa Winn

Lincoln Park United Methodist Church
Rev. Harold D. Lewis, Sr., Pastor
1301 North Carolina, N.E.
Washington, DC
Sunday
June 22nd National Juneteenth Worship Service
10:45am Rev. Cornelius Wheeler, Pastor

Vermont Avenue Baptist Church
1630 Vermont Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC