Comments on: “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For”

By: cando

cando — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:07:13 +0000

We Are The Ones was written by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Her group, Sweet Honey in the Rock, sings it. I suspect a lot of black people have sung it in church. I sang it in a Peace Choir on the Oregon Coast. I just think Bernice deserves credit for the line.

By: westwingjunkie

westwingjunkie — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 04:39:47 +0000

Obama tweaking West Wing transcripts for his speeches

These are great episodes from the West Wing. And when I heard his speech from Tuesday night, thought it sounded familiar. Now we know where his inspiration comes from. Still gonna support for him though

West Wing Season 2 Ep.2 (In the shadow of two Gunmen) 38 mins 50 sec
Bartlet
what began on the commons in Concord, Massachusetts, as an alliance
of farmers and workers, of cobbles man and tinsmiths, of statesmen and students,…

Obama (Feb5)
What began as a whisper in Springfield soon carried across the cornfields of Iowa, where farmers and factory workers, students and seniors stood up in numbers we have never seen before.

West Wing Season 4 Ep.22 (Commencement) 25 mins 40sec
BARTLET
“You must be the change” - is that it? “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Obama (Feb5)
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Going to read some of the transcripts from Obama stump speeches. There are bound to be some other ideas that come from hit Tv shows

By: bonkers

bonkers — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:00:09 +0000

Whoops. Didn’t mean to imply you were doing that. Totally fair points on Obama’s various “plans” and some of his wishy-washiness. Some of that stuff is bothersome to me as well, but still isn’t as bad as the problems I have with Hillary’s various plans, and many of the things she has done in her career. Her entire staff is made up of DLCers through and through, just as she herself is having been the DLC chair. I feel the DLC was purposely created to infiltrate the Dem Party from within, and make sure we don’t get anything too Liberal done that might hurt the profits of the BigMoney stringpullers. Paranoid perhaps? I present NAFTA, Telecommunications Act, Welfare “Reform,” and this entire first year of Dem “leadership as evidence to prove my theory. And there’s so much more…

I feel Warshington has been descending into a horrible mess the last few decades, to the point where our entire system of government is potentially damaged beyond repair. I just don’t think people who have presided over much of that time are going to be the ones to fix it. I want new blood and new ideas. Now.

Also, I really disagree with the notion the BigMedia is ramming Obama down our throats, in fact, I feel it’s just the opposite. I remember the first comment I ever made to a blog, about 4-5 years ago, had to do with all these reports I was seeing about Hillary being “inevitable” even back then. I was wondering where that came from since I do not know a single person that supported her back then or hardly even now for that matter. And I’m quite active within DemocratIC Party. I spelled out some other reasons in the above comment as well.

Whatever happens with the Prez race, at least we can all rally behind the More and Better Blue America candidates, which is where we have the most impact anyway.

By: bonkers

bonkers — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:39:26 +0000

But this momentum story is to a large part a media invention, because it makes a quick and easy story without requiring much thought.

You’re right. It doesn’t require much thought to analyze these numbers:

In Jan, when they finally started going head-to-head, Obama raises $32 million in one month. Clinton raises $13 million in the same month. This after Hillary raised a little more than Obama in the 4th Quarter last year.

Obama wins Iowa convincingly, South Carolina by over twice as many votes, the delegates in Nevada, and yesterday, more delegates and many more states than Clinton.

Seems to me the voters are creating the momentum. I feel the BigMedia has been keeping some of these simple facts quiet in order to drag this thing out as long as possible (no time for the links but I have a long list of them to back up this point). Just this week I saw several stories headlined on the Yahoo frontpage about Hillary winning the Q4 fundraising, and this was after they reported on Obama’s $32 mil month. Not one that actually compared the $32-$13 million Obama advantage in Jan OF THIS YEAR fer chissakes. If your theory of a pro-Obama press was true, wouldn’t that have been all over the BigMedia? Instead just a few articles here and there that I never saw headlined or in the TV gabfests. The longer this Obama-Clinton fight goes, the better for ratings and ad buys.

By: ChrisO

ChrisO — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:24:22 +0000

It’s interesting how Obama supporters need to cling to this notion of Obama overcoming Hillary’s lead. It’s not as though they held an election last year, then held another one this year. Hillary’s ”leads” all came from opinion polls. How long will it take until we realize that the polls, [particularly in this election), are completely unreliable? How many Obama supporters kep touting the polls that showed Obama winning California and Massachusetts? Hillary started with name recognition, but she wasn’t the incumbent, although the Obama camp would like to position her that way. Obama is an attractive candidate, and as the public got to know him better, he has picked up substantial support. Realistically, though, he had nowhere to go but up. I think it’s a fallacy to portray this as a lot of voters who were solidly in Clinton’s corner now going to Obama. There’s been a huge number of undecideds all along, and Obama’s picking up his share. But this momentum story is to a large part a media invention, because it makes a quick and easy story without requiring much thought. Wherever Hillary racked up sizable wins, it’s dismissed as meaningless; the only number that seems to count is how much her margin of victory was below polls taken a month ago.

To the extent that Obama supporters want to crow about his wins yesterday, go ahead, that’s legitimate. But claiming his losses weren’t really losses is just silly. I especially like the way the early voters were somehow dismissed, as if their votes don’t count quite as much or if they had waited they would have surely voted for Obama.

It’s especially amusing to see Obama supporters talk about the polls while simultaneously dismissing the 1.4 million actual voters who went to the polls in Florida, and preferred Hillary by a 20 point margin. And no, you don’t have top repeat that there were no delegates at stake. That fact doesn’t make those 1.4 million voters magically disappear.

And a special note to ProfessorFoland way upthread at 43: ”But it seems kos is right–the endorsements you really want are from machine mayors, who can deliver patronage votes even if it’s a less flashy way to go about it. Boston’s mayor Menino was for Hillary, and perhaps that was no small part of her victory.” Yeah, maybe Ted Kennedy should think about getting himself one of those machines. Nice the way Menino’s support is dismissed as ”patronage votes.” Since Obama carried Boston, perhaps it’s time for a new theory.

By: CasualObserver

CasualObserver — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:03:49 +0000

If he wins NM, will Richardson endorse him? What impact would it have on TX latino vote?

Richardson would be great. Unfortunately, Cisneros has already endorsed Clinton.

By: kairosincal

kairosincal — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:38:28 +0000

Amen and thanks, Scarecrow. Sounds like clarity came and is very real.
B

By: ceci

ceci — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:00:35 +0000

When you look at this chart take into account where Obama stood only 2 months ago and the Clinton name recognition. These results seemed impossible. A dream.
Obama won 13 states , with NM maybe 14, 8 of them by margins larger than 20 points. Hillary won 8 states, 2 by more than 20 point margins.
I remain hopeful that: YES WE CAN!
I think Obama offset the California 10 point margin loss by winning more states- and with more larger margins than Hillary.
If Obama could succeed in courting the Latino vote he’d have it in the bag. If he wins NM, will Richardson endorse him? What impact would it have on TX latino vote?

OBAMA

MO 100%: Obama 49- Clinton 48 - margin 1 By one point, but significant.
AK 98%: Obama 75 Clinton 25 margin 50
UT 99%: Obama 57 Clinton 39 margin 18
CO 99%: OBama 67 Clinton 32 margin 35
ID 100%: Obama 79 Clinton 17 margin 62
MN 81%: Obama 67 Clinton 32 margin 35
CT 99%: OBama 51 Clinton 47 margin 4
KS 100%: Obama 74 Clinton 26 margin 48 (Obama family ties to KS)
ND 100%: Obama 61 Clinton 37 margin 24
AL 99%: Obama 56 Clinton 42 margin 14
DE 100%:Obama 53 Clinton 43 margin 10
IL 97%: Obama 65- Clinton 33 margin 32 (Hillary’s native state- Obama’s adopted state( he was born in Honolulu)
GA 99%:Obama 67-Clinton 31 margin 36

CLINTON
CA 95%: Clinton 52- Obama 42 margin 10
AZ 98%: Clinton 51-Obama 42 margin 9
NJ 99%: Clinton 54 Obama 44 margin 10
MA 99%: Clinton 56-Obama 41 margin 15
NY 99%: Clinton 57-Obama 40 margin 17 (Hillary’s adopted state)
TN 100%: Clinton 54-Obama 41 margin 13
AR 89%: Clinton 69-Obama 27 margin 42 (we know the story here)
OK 100%: Clinton 55-Obama 31 margin 34

NM with 92 percent of the votes reporting: Obama 49 -Clinton 48

By: 1divasinger

1divasinger — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:49:45 +0000

Well, it looks like once again Democrats will pull defeat from the jaws of victory. Let’s vote for Edwards who has withdrawn from the race instead of making the two remaining candidates articulate his issues. Let’s continue to fracture the party, our party with wonderful ideas. In the meantime, we let the right fall in line behind the 100 year war mongering butt kisser-flip flopper. No need to push our agenda forward…let’s just pout and dream of what could have been. Amazingly, we call Obama a dreamer and not really look at his history and positions. Then, we repeat the Clinton spin on him and the talking points of those who desperately want Hillary. We want someone who makes us proud to be Americans again, and has the tools to work on those issues. So, we pout about Clinton, Obama or Edwards…instead of taking the best issues of Kucinich, Biden, Dodd, and Richardson, and making the remaining candidates take up the cause. What is really sad is how we are now dividing each other into subgroups…yes, we are liberal and progressive, but we don’t seem to really know each other or like each other very much. Unless we are all collectively being screwed by the right wing. Maybe we better clean up our own house before the nomination goes to someone who simply can’t win in November. Again. Damn!

By: CasualObserver

CasualObserver — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:35:49 +0000

Hillary Clinton is way to the right of me, and Obama is waaay to the right of Clinton. Not good.

I’m not sure how one places Obama way to the right of Clinton when their voting records are so similar. both are moderates.

I agree with you on the Kumbaya thing, and I don’t expect Obama, if elected, to have tremendous impact on the partisanship in the congress. I don’t want congress holding hands and necking. I want the democrats to stand for something.

But since my preferred candidates are all gone (or never entered), I believe Obama can fill that office much more effectively than can Clinton.

One other thing. I am greatly disappointed and mystified that neither Obama nor Clinton make any statements about the rule of law, the gutting of FISA, and the importance of our constitutional rights. It’s strange, but one almost gets the impression that they just don’t care.