Hi, Ian :)

Thanks to Thomas Mifflin the Digg is open so come on Pups show yo0ur support for Ian and the Lake and Digg this post!
Thomas you really need to take a bow now and then for all the support you show for the Lake:>)

A Change Is Gonna Come

Hi all,

Sorry to go OT so early but had some news I wanted to share
JOHN MCCAIN JUST LOST COLORADO
http://www.progressnowaction.o…..st/al/Cq4H

Yes, and Howie wants to thank Thomas for digging the DWT posts he could not, since his Internet access is borked.

Really, no successful presidential candidate has ever got elected on specifics. Look at Reagan’s “Morning in America” — aka “I won’t lecture you on your amoral behavior like that wet blanket Jimmy Carter”. And Bush the Dumber didn’t have any specifics at all – none that he didn’t immediately violate (remember his “humble foreign policy” line?).

In fact, as has been pointed out, FDR in 1932, and JFK in 1960, ran very similar campaigns to Barack Obama’s:

When FDR ran for President in 1932 he pledged a New Deal to the American people, but only tepidly ran on a liberal political agenda, instead focusing his message of political change on the notion of bold, persistent experimentation. When Eisenhower said “I shall go to Korea” he didn’t actually say what he would do once he got there or how he planned to end the Korean War.

When JFK spoke of a New Frontier he didn’t precisely tell Americans the route he would take. (In fact, when I interviewed Ted Sorensen for the book, one of the things he told me was that the campaign purposely avoided talking too much about policy issues for fear that it would be divisive. Kennedy went out of his way to talk in poetry not prose). In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected President, in part because he had a secret plan for ending the war in Vietnam.

As countless successful politicians have shown, ambiguous change is often more effective than change explicitly defined and voters are more likely to respond, as Andrei puts it to “values and national goals.” Those are the essential themes of a great campaign speech.

Citizen Ian Welsh:

Great post…I look forward ta tomorrow’s open discussion. But after watchin’ the Video clip up on the folks in NYC bringin’ it ta Fox, I am wonderin’ why the national Democratic Party has not attempted to create an anti-fascist front to draw disaffected non-fascist conservatives and blue collar, out a work union folks into coalition with folks of color and liberals. It also makes me wonder why a group like MoveOn can’t succeed with a tactic like that, forcin’ the Democratic Party to stop scapegoating the left in an effort to win the center.

Althat hasta happen to identify the Democratic Party as the anti-fascist party is folks like Howard Dean, Al Gore and other non-candidates to start usin’ the word “fascist” to brand the Republican Party.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THE RIGHTS YOU SAVE ARE YOURS TOO!!!

Change should involve systematically revisiting all of the bad policies of the Bush administration, including legislation as well as administrative rulemaking, and setting things right. Effective change may require some members of Congress to recognise their past mistakes and vote to change some laws that they voted to approve under Bush, perhaps resulting from White House intimidation. Change would mean that we would not be bound by the mistakes of the past.

Citizen Phoenix Woman:

Great point, but FDR did NOT scapegoat the “liberal” intelligentsia or the northern economic populists and labor folks on the street durin’ the ‘32 campaign. This is the only thing that has bothered me about trustin’ Obama’s unarticulated program for “change”…his tactic of scapegoating and takin’ the liberal base of the party for granted bothers me still.

Change has to begin with placing people in each agency of government who perceives the clients of that agency as the people and not the corporations.

P.S. Obama’s ties to the University of Chicago and the Daley machine also make me uncomfortable.

WTF… They are going to destroy 1700 acres, do untold enviromental damage for (after construction) 425 jobs??

I’d like to know who making the money out of this little deal??

‘the plant will create more than 1,000 construction jobs, 350 mining jobs and 75 permanent jobs to run the plant.’

ST. PAUL, Va. – ‘With cranes extended over the site, Dominion Virginia Power and dignitaries from around the state held a formal groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday for its coal-fired power plant.

Construction of the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center began in June when the company received permits to build the $1.8 billion project.

“Very soon … you’ll see the stack start going up,” Stu Gitchell, site manager for Dominion, said after the ceremony. “That’s the first real imposing structure that you’ll see.”

Gitchell said the stack will stand 500 feet – about 100 feet higher than the surrounding ridgelines. Currently, workers are laying the plant’s foundation, which consists of 483 concrete pillars placed 90 feet into the bedrock.’

http://www.tricities.com/tri/n…..fragment-1

Dave Neiwert a couple of flights upstairs

Said nothing in this post about electability. It’s still kind of important just what change means. In 2006 Congress was elected with a mandate to end the Iraq war and didn’t even try. Elected with a mandate to use subpoena power and really didn’t.

So what type of change is Obama going to institute? What’s he being elected to do other than just not be McCain? Important question, I’d say.