This week's profile is a video I created using footage I spent a weekend collecting from around Massachusetts and the words of Al Gore from a number of speeches, interviews, and policy forums.
This is not a biographical documentary, and it's not an opinionated documentary either. This is Al Gore "as is."
Words can be powerful and moving, especially Gore's and especially with accompanying music and images, but is Al Gore merely a master of rhetoric?
Has Al Gore failed in his efforts to effect change?
What lies beyond the inspiring words?
How much progress have we made?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Obama Must Face His "Red, White, and Blue" United States
Four years ago the soaring vision of the up and coming Senator Barack Obama united the Democrats; a future leader had a dream for America in which party politics were left behind in favor of the common good. Instead of that ideal turning into reality, it seems Obama's hope for a patriotic red, white, and blue America has played out literally.
As he shifts gear into a general election campaign, Barack Obama must now confront not one, but three Americas: Republicans, Obama-Democrats, and working-class white voters.
It's hard to decided whether or not to blame Senator Obama for the situation he is currently being confronted with. On one hand, Obama's "sweetie" and "bitter" comments have angered women and moderate to conservative rural democrats, his inability to distance himself from the inflammatory sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright (still), and Michelle Obama's statements that make us wonder why this man and woman want to be America's first family give me tremendous pause about Obama.
On the other hand, the long nomination process has forced Obama to draw distinctions between himself and Senator Clinton and expose weaknesses that otherwise may not have been discovered. This is not Obama's fault, and neither is the fact that the long primary season has forced Obama's name into the national media on a 24/7 basis, diluting his image as a Washington outsider with every news cycle featuring a story on him.
Kentucky's primary results from yesterday (a 35% win for Clinton) and West Virginia's from last week (Clinton's 41% victory) expose a critical weakness for Obama along certain demographics. What I've been so disappointed by in talking about this election is that I am often criticized for bringing up the fact that voters without a college degree in Kentucky, for example, voted for Clinton over Obama nearly 3-1. These observations, apparently, "divide us" and prevent us as Demographics from working to fix the problems that face us. I've heard it all before.
Don't get me wrong, I think much of Senator Obama's message represents a fantasic injection of life and energy into the Democratic Party that has not been around for years. But at the same time I am a Democrat first and foremost, and my biggest concern is not the preservation of the Obama campaign theme, rather that a Democrat wins in November. Though there are intricacies behind each of these statements that I could discuss, the following are simple facts in my eyes:
If Obama is a weak candidate among working-class white voters, Democrats should be aware of this instead of having John Edwards hop into the picture and try to pass on some credibility to Obama. Come November, endorsements matter much less than whether or not working-class whites are comfortable with Obama over McCain.
Regardless of whether or not Obama wins the Democratic nomination (and he will), I consider it presumptuous of him to make his quasi-victory speech last night. Not only had that plan been in the works for weeks, but as the Democratic-bashers at Boston talk radio 96.9 WTKK said repeatedly yesterday, Obama is declaring victory because he has more points at the end of the third period.
Finally and most important to me, can Obama beat John McCain? Can Obama win tough battleground states that he's lost in decisive primaries? What does the poll below mean?
In a state that rallied around Barack Obama during the Democratic Primary, North Carolina voters chose Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama when McCain sits across the ticket.
My guess is that Hillary Clinton, regardless of how well she does in certain general election polls, will be effectively "out" of the campaign by June 4th. So, as I prepare to become an Obama Democrat, I want to make some predictions as to how I see the 2008 election playing out. On the record, this weekend, I'll lay out how I see November's vote going down.
As he shifts gear into a general election campaign, Barack Obama must now confront not one, but three Americas: Republicans, Obama-Democrats, and working-class white voters.
It's hard to decided whether or not to blame Senator Obama for the situation he is currently being confronted with. On one hand, Obama's "sweetie" and "bitter" comments have angered women and moderate to conservative rural democrats, his inability to distance himself from the inflammatory sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright (still), and Michelle Obama's statements that make us wonder why this man and woman want to be America's first family give me tremendous pause about Obama.
On the other hand, the long nomination process has forced Obama to draw distinctions between himself and Senator Clinton and expose weaknesses that otherwise may not have been discovered. This is not Obama's fault, and neither is the fact that the long primary season has forced Obama's name into the national media on a 24/7 basis, diluting his image as a Washington outsider with every news cycle featuring a story on him.
Kentucky's primary results from yesterday (a 35% win for Clinton) and West Virginia's from last week (Clinton's 41% victory) expose a critical weakness for Obama along certain demographics. What I've been so disappointed by in talking about this election is that I am often criticized for bringing up the fact that voters without a college degree in Kentucky, for example, voted for Clinton over Obama nearly 3-1. These observations, apparently, "divide us" and prevent us as Demographics from working to fix the problems that face us. I've heard it all before.
Don't get me wrong, I think much of Senator Obama's message represents a fantasic injection of life and energy into the Democratic Party that has not been around for years. But at the same time I am a Democrat first and foremost, and my biggest concern is not the preservation of the Obama campaign theme, rather that a Democrat wins in November. Though there are intricacies behind each of these statements that I could discuss, the following are simple facts in my eyes:
If Obama is a weak candidate among working-class white voters, Democrats should be aware of this instead of having John Edwards hop into the picture and try to pass on some credibility to Obama. Come November, endorsements matter much less than whether or not working-class whites are comfortable with Obama over McCain.
Regardless of whether or not Obama wins the Democratic nomination (and he will), I consider it presumptuous of him to make his quasi-victory speech last night. Not only had that plan been in the works for weeks, but as the Democratic-bashers at Boston talk radio 96.9 WTKK said repeatedly yesterday, Obama is declaring victory because he has more points at the end of the third period.
Finally and most important to me, can Obama beat John McCain? Can Obama win tough battleground states that he's lost in decisive primaries? What does the poll below mean?
In a state that rallied around Barack Obama during the Democratic Primary, North Carolina voters chose Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama when McCain sits across the ticket.
My guess is that Hillary Clinton, regardless of how well she does in certain general election polls, will be effectively "out" of the campaign by June 4th. So, as I prepare to become an Obama Democrat, I want to make some predictions as to how I see the 2008 election playing out. On the record, this weekend, I'll lay out how I see November's vote going down.
Covering Kennedy
Looking for an alternative take on yesterday's news about Senator Kennedy? Tired of the gushy biographical television tributes whenever a celeb ends up in the hospital? BitsBlog is.
All the while it's hard not to be moved if you watch Senator Byrd today in Washington. Kennedy may be a politician, and it's not right to praise him unduly and judge him in a different light now that he's ill, but for some, like Byrd, Kennedy is a close colleague and loyal friend. Now is a not a time for politics, rather a time for consideration and for acknowledging Kennedy's many years of service, no matter what side of the aisle he's on.
All the while it's hard not to be moved if you watch Senator Byrd today in Washington. Kennedy may be a politician, and it's not right to praise him unduly and judge him in a different light now that he's ill, but for some, like Byrd, Kennedy is a close colleague and loyal friend. Now is a not a time for politics, rather a time for consideration and for acknowledging Kennedy's many years of service, no matter what side of the aisle he's on.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
One Man's Investment in America: A Profile
One morning in June of 2005, Dr. Mark Klein decided he should run for President.
While covering the election in New Hampshire last winter, I walked into a White Hen Pantry and noticed a man passing out fliers for his Presidential campaign. Initially, I was temped to dismiss him as another publicity hound in New Hampshire running a vanity bid for the White House. Instead, what he said to me caught my attention. Mark Klein was “sick and tired of writing letters and complaining.” Klein believed deeply in citizens actively pursuing solutions to problems this country faces and in his ability to “guide our troubled society through very rocky shoals.” Running for President was simply performing his civic duty.
Klein, a sixty-seven year old retired psychiatrist, decided to take the money he was saving to reward himself with a gift like a luxury car and begin a campaign. Klein would seek America’s highest office having never previously run for any political position. Once he completed FEC Forms 1 and 2, Klein was on his way.
Over two and a half years later Klein returned home from snowy New Hampshire to his home in Oakland, California; he had received nineteen votes in the New Hampshire Republican Primary. Dr. Klein finished second-to-last among the twenty-one Republican candidates in New Hampshire, but the significance of his campaign is bigger than the small number of votes he received.
As a psychiatrist, Klein feels he has diagnosed some of the problems of America. “I always tell patients ‘if you continue to go in this direction you’re going to have a bad end.’ What happens is they don’t listen to me until they have to go into rehab. America has meshiga,” Klein explained to me over the phone earlier this week. “If I were President that wouldn’t work for me.”
In an election year where the predominant campaign theme is “change,” Klein’s campaign was rooted in a different philosophy: returning America to the strengths it once possessed. “I was in the last generation of people raised in an America that I thought was governed by grownups. Now the country is run by a bunch of juveniles.” A campaign flyer Klein distributed in New Hampshire featured a portrait of President Dwight Eisenhower hovering behind his own. Though Eisenhower is often remembered for his command of American troops through France and Germany during World War II, Klein was not invoking his memory to make any foreign policy or military statements.
“Eisenhower was very cautious about foreign adventures, but he was also careful about fiscal responsibility” says Klein. It was around domestic issues like the economy that Klein’s political platform was centered. After telling a story about growing up the son of a butcher, working in his father’s store, and making (on good days) $1 an hour, he solemnly declared that the buying power of wages is woefully low now. In Klein’s eyes, the prospects of creating a middle class family like the one he grew up in are in jeopardy.
Klein ran for President as a Republican, and his position on a hot button issue like illegal immigration, for example, is very much in line with the GOP’s positions. “Millions of illegal immigrants drive down wages and take once good-paying blue collar jobs,” wrote Klein on his MySpace campaign page. On other issues, however, Klein found it difficult to connect with the popular policy positions of either the Republican or Democratic parties.
As a vocal supporter of the Fathers Rights Movement—a self-described civil rights campaign that fights to end what it sees as discrimination against fathers in family custody courts—Klein’s core of supporters came from the Movement. Though the Movement has a sizeable following around the country (and there are over 25 million non-custodial parents in the United States), they are often deemed too radical and extraneous to get the attention of those in the political establishment. Klein has four children and has spent much of his life helping to raise them. In Klein's view, the negative impact that current policies have on the fate of today’s children was enough to get Klein out of bed and into the Presidential race.
“The children come first!” proclaims one of Klein’s pieces of campaign literature. In order to ensure the economic livelihood of the next generation of Americans, Klein believes our government ought to pay down the national debt, regulate interest rates, and crack down on companies outsourcing jobs overseas.
I asked Klein if his adamant opposition to free trade was out of touch with the inevitable growth of globalization. Klein turned the tables on me immediately. “Are all our children supposed to work at McDonalds or Best Buy?” he asked. Klein admits he lives in an upscale bubble, but in campaigning he “ran into all these kids who were college graduates working at Starbucks—they don’t have anything. Is our future to give everything away? If that is the future, it’s nuts.”
Though Klein’s position on globalization is hardly mainstream, he argued his point clearly and with the experience of a man who’s heard the concerns of voters around the country. After all, campaigning heavily in three states, building a volunteer network, and working crowds at local conventions and straw polls was what Klein did through most of 2006 and 2007.
Though he is far from an established politician or veteran of political campaigns, Klein did have a following in the Northeast corner of Georgia. This base of support gave Klein hope that he might be able to make a small showing in Georgia. Fanning out from his corner of support, he thought he could then pick up enough momentum to get his name and candidacy into the MSM and onto voters’ radar.
Unfortunately, New Hampshire would be the last chance for Klein to make a stand. Of the states he initially campaigned in, New Hampshire was the only one in which Klein could get on the ballot (by paying a $1,000 registration fee). Although he placed highly in the Des Moines straw poll and other polls at conventions around the country, Klein feels the Republican party systematically squeezed him out of the race by denying him spots on state ballots and at the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa.
Klein was aware that his campaign was drawing near an end when I met him just days before that state’s Primary. When I asked him if he did more than distribute fliers in New Hampshire, Klein explained “well that’s all I did, nobody invited me to anything [he was barred from debates and other forums]. I decided to spend every day walking around and talking to everybody. I figured if I had a shot it was by word of mouth. Anybody with a heartbeat got a brochure.”
After what he considered a “very poor result” in New Hampshire, Klein decided to return home and get back to pursuing his hobbies and spending time with his kids and grandchildren. As he wound down his campaign, however, Klein says he has no regrets about running: “The money I spent on this was my gift to the United States. To repay America for all it has done for me and my family. It’s basically a charitable gift.”
Since ending his campaign Klein has split from the Republican Party and says he is now supporting Senator Barack Obama.
A Profile Update and the Edwards Endorsement
A day and a half late already, I've just moved on to the editing phase of this week's profile.
I'll pick up the process early tomorrow morning and look to wrap things up before noon.
Meanwhile, the week's news is the Edwards endorsement of Obama. Before I head off to bed I have three brief thoughts about the move:
1) Obama's campaign should rightfully be celebrating the support of Edwards, but Edwards' waiting until this late in the nomination process to chose a candidate is not necessarily a good thing. Some said this of Governor Richardson's endorsement a few months back, but deciding to endorse in May is by no means gutsy.
2) It is said that Edwards made the decision to back Obama following the West Virginia Primary because Edwards was worried the margin of Clinton's victory coupled with the perception that Obama is a weak candidate among working class white voters would damage his credibility and the Democratic party. My problem with this...if Obama really is weak among this demographic, shouldn't we acknowledge that fact instead of trying to mount a PR push to cover it up?
3) I have always admire John Edwards a great deal, and in covering Edwards in Des Moines on caucus day this past January I was never at a loss for good things to say about him and his campaign (read HERE and HERE). Presuming Obama is the Democratic nominee, Edwards deserves a cabinet position in recognition of his fight to end poverty in America, provide greater access to higher education for students in North Carolina, and for his tireless fight to provide health care for all Americans. Though Edwards' delay in endorsing Obama indicates that he may have simply been looking for a way into a Democratic administration, Obama and America would be lucky to have him.
I'll pick up the process early tomorrow morning and look to wrap things up before noon.
Meanwhile, the week's news is the Edwards endorsement of Obama. Before I head off to bed I have three brief thoughts about the move:
1) Obama's campaign should rightfully be celebrating the support of Edwards, but Edwards' waiting until this late in the nomination process to chose a candidate is not necessarily a good thing. Some said this of Governor Richardson's endorsement a few months back, but deciding to endorse in May is by no means gutsy.
2) It is said that Edwards made the decision to back Obama following the West Virginia Primary because Edwards was worried the margin of Clinton's victory coupled with the perception that Obama is a weak candidate among working class white voters would damage his credibility and the Democratic party. My problem with this...if Obama really is weak among this demographic, shouldn't we acknowledge that fact instead of trying to mount a PR push to cover it up?
3) I have always admire John Edwards a great deal, and in covering Edwards in Des Moines on caucus day this past January I was never at a loss for good things to say about him and his campaign (read HERE and HERE). Presuming Obama is the Democratic nominee, Edwards deserves a cabinet position in recognition of his fight to end poverty in America, provide greater access to higher education for students in North Carolina, and for his tireless fight to provide health care for all Americans. Though Edwards' delay in endorsing Obama indicates that he may have simply been looking for a way into a Democratic administration, Obama and America would be lucky to have him.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Thoughts on West Virginia and the Next Week
I have ten minutes to write up my thoughts on tonight's results from West Virginia (as well as what I think will happen over the next few weeks for the Democrats) before I've got to get back to AP Art History studying. Here goes:
1) Hillary Clinton beat the lowered expectations that I set for her a few days ago (scroll down two posts). Yes, I'm a Hillary supporter so you could see my "expectations" as being as useless as the campaign spin that Clinton's campaign likes to dish out before a "surprise" big win, but there have been precious few times this campaign where big leads in polls have held or where candidates truly beat their own expectations (South Carolina comes to mind as a big win for Obama). Hillary is currently up by 39% (EDIT: 41%), a figure I can imagine her campaign is actually surprised about.
2) Obama is smart (though I don't think it's a very polite tactic) to transition into general election mode. Hillary Clinton's speech tonight was successful in one key area: making Obama look bad for not spending more time in West Virginia. Unlike Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire—swing states that Clinton ended up winning, but where Obama campaigned heavily—Obama spent little time in West Virginia, writing the state off as a big win for Clinton early on. The result of this strategy: Hillary Clinton wins the state in head-to-head polling with McCain while Obama loses (look at the electoral map HERE).
3) No matter what happens in Kentucky next week for Hillary Clinton, the current wave she will ride for the next few days will end after the results from Oregon come in. Unlike Clinton's win tonight in West Virginia, Kentucky will not swing for the Democrats in November and the very loud and liberal Democrats in Oregon will push Obama to victory there.
1) Hillary Clinton beat the lowered expectations that I set for her a few days ago (scroll down two posts). Yes, I'm a Hillary supporter so you could see my "expectations" as being as useless as the campaign spin that Clinton's campaign likes to dish out before a "surprise" big win, but there have been precious few times this campaign where big leads in polls have held or where candidates truly beat their own expectations (South Carolina comes to mind as a big win for Obama). Hillary is currently up by 39% (EDIT: 41%), a figure I can imagine her campaign is actually surprised about.
2) Obama is smart (though I don't think it's a very polite tactic) to transition into general election mode. Hillary Clinton's speech tonight was successful in one key area: making Obama look bad for not spending more time in West Virginia. Unlike Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire—swing states that Clinton ended up winning, but where Obama campaigned heavily—Obama spent little time in West Virginia, writing the state off as a big win for Clinton early on. The result of this strategy: Hillary Clinton wins the state in head-to-head polling with McCain while Obama loses (look at the electoral map HERE).
3) No matter what happens in Kentucky next week for Hillary Clinton, the current wave she will ride for the next few days will end after the results from Oregon come in. Unlike Clinton's win tonight in West Virginia, Kentucky will not swing for the Democrats in November and the very loud and liberal Democrats in Oregon will push Obama to victory there.
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