Obama is Not a Movement

Obamanism is the term coined by the media to describe the feverish excitement many Obama supporters are experiencing in this primary elections. Many are calling it a movement to reawaken the dormant electorate. I found this piece written by political scientist Benjamin Barber in his blog, which attempts to diffuse the misrepresentation.

Movements outlast candidates and candidacies. Their leaders generally don’t even run for office — think Martin Luther King, Hugo Chavez, Benjamin Spock, and Betty Friedan; or Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. Candidates may become attached to or embody a cause, but the cause comes first and the candidate is never himself (herself) the cause, any more than working to elect the candidate is the movement. Movements do not start in a candidacy or end in an election.

When Senator Obama calls for your engagement in the political and civic process, do you really think he means only as long as it’s about voting for him? About voting at all? If there is a movement attached to his cause, beyond making him the nominee, it is a movement to call on citizens to reassume the responsibilities and obligations of citizenship. To understand that the quality of our democracy depends less on the quality of leadership than the quality of citizenship

http://blog.civworld.org/

Obama is not a movement. He is only a candidate trying to get elected.

The Green Revolution

It is not surprising to see green collar jobs making its debut in an overwhelmingly changing global economy. They are the dot.com versions of a highly evolved, technology driven, renewable-energy and energy-efficient industry that could grow to as many as 40 million jobs by 2030, according to a report by the American Solar Energy Society. Whatever the reason for this green jobs evolution, i.e., switching careers for higher paychecks, acquiring and developing green skills or awakening an inner passion for saving Mother Earth, private industry is outperforming government in a sprinting race to save the Planet, and of course making plenty of money in the process.

As I strolled in to work this week, I caught up with work announcements calling for a greener work environment. I work in a government building in Capitol Hill, where the average employee is a middle class citizen, and gets its benefits, commute, childcare, and savings plan subsidized by an out-of-touched government. My husband on the other hand, works for an architectural design firm, where employees are encouraged to take mass transportation in an effort to be more socially conscious. In fact, industries like construction, finance and marketing are pioneering the movement towards a greener lifestyle, and this output has translated into half a dozen or so other industries following their lead.

But in my office, computers are not turned off, lights are on 24/7, and copy paper is a renewable resource. In fact, while many residential and office buildings across the US, including some government buildings, are going green; this turn of the century, vault of wisdom and American values institution, which has been retrofitted twice, still uses incandescent light bulbs, and recycles very little.

People like Al Gore, a private industry individual, have put global warming in the forefront of our public policies concern, but now it’s the government’s turn: The new tenant of the White House has to cast this government in a leadership role and turn this race into an economic advantageous pursuit as well as a humanitarian gain.

Not Giving Up

When you consider the recent polls in the Democratic primaries you can see why Clinton is choosing to stay in. The margin between the candidates stands about 135 delegates, however it’s not a big one. Here are three fundamental reasons why she should stay in:

1. Clinton generally outperforms Obama in general debates. She is a hell of a debater, particularly because she has been surrounded by government officials for the past 35 years, making her the ideal candidate, at least by Washington standards, to withstand Republican bashing in a general election, akin to the idea that the devil knows best not because he is evil but because he has been around longer.

2. She keeps winning states. The next primary is Pennsylvania, and polls show that Hillary will take it by a 20% margin, and this state has plenty of delegates count. Next stop is Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, which shows Obama’s lead in the two states, with N.C. being taken by a wider margin. Then comes May 13, and it swings back to Hillary with Nebraska and West Virginia holding primaries. On May 20, in Oregon and Kentucky it’s Clinton country all over again, and many are expecting Sen. Edwards to have come out in her favor, since it was last reported that Elizabeth Edwards was joining the Center for American Progress, which was founded by former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, who is expected to be an appointee in a future Clinton Administration.


3. She is more specific about the issues. These include: Ending the Iraq War, promoting Universal Healthcare, passing an outstanding Energy Policy, possessing greater depth on Economic reforms, reforming the Working Class and Labor Organizations, having a clearer and more centered Education and Immigration reforms, committing strongly to attack Global Warming, etc. She is a ruthless warrior on these issues, not merely an academic, for she has been burned not once but twice while rolling up her sleeves.

So why are Democrats so scared of prolonging this race anyway? Somehow Obama’s supporters and many others think that if this race is not settled before the convention, that this will forever damage Obama’s candidacy in November. The clamor to see Hillary drop out of the race stems from a fear that they would have managed to blow what should have been an easy win, because apparently Democrats don’t do well in extended and prolonged races. Well, this is the time to change history then, let Hillary finish her race, she owes nobody anything, including the Democratic Party. Besides what's wrong with Bill and Hillary having pillow talks? I would much rather see that.

The Amazing Race

It’s truly amazing to witness the intensity of the Democratic
Party’s primaries and how they have flooded the news
organizations’ agendas and lineups, saturating the news programming
just to cover any aspect worthy and unworthy of this race. This trend
slowly started in 2000, when the euphoric years of the Clinton
Administration came to an abrupt end, and their lackluster achievements
failed to nominate Al Gore.

Both camps in the Democratic party, have been up to their teeth,
highlighting their candidate’s personal issues before policy issues,
while the media gladly overplays the rants and the overtones, and adds
their own cacophonic undertones. Both candidates have had it tough, and
both have played into the innuendos they are handed from the media.
They are both fighting to the death in order to obtain this nomination.
It seems to me that, even with the Pennsylvania primary lurking, this
nomination will be decided by the superdelegates.

Even with this said, Obama is leading by about 120 electoral votes, not
a great margin, but nonetheless, a very difficult one to overcome
mathematically; Clinton refuses to be pinned down, maybe because resurrection has been her underlying strategy as of the end of February and one that has yielded limited success. Whether she can keep this up, she should
not concede to Obama yet. The democratic process clearly states that the will
of the people cannot be ignored, therefore democratic leaders calling for her withdrawal should think hard about the goods of democracy, which cannot be packaged in a bulk, distributed to the masses and then withheld in the name of ensuring a candidate’s intact audacity to hope come November.