This is the press release Howard Dean, whose offices were picketed this week by hundreds of angry Floridians, should issue as soon as possible:
“The Democratic National Committee rules only apply to delegates and the Rules Committee has so far barred the seating of any delegates from Florida. But the rules say nothing about how the comparative popular vote between candidates should be tabulated. Thus, the DNC’s delegate ruling has no effect on whether superdelegates who are using the popular vote as a measure of the relative strength of the candidates should or should not include Florida’s popular vote in their national tally. It is up to each superdelegate to decide if they want to count or discount the 1.7 million Florida Democrats who voted. I am issuing this statement because so many observers of this close contest have misinterpreted the DNC’s actions and conflated the delegate and popular vote questions.”
Instead, Dean has resisted inquiries from the Voice, by email and phone, for several weeks asking for a straightforward answer to the popular vote question.
His spokesman, Damien LaVera, who responded by email to some questions, would not answer any inquiries about the Florida popular vote. The unofficial word from the DNC, which no one will say on the record, is that it “doesn’t keep track of the popular vote” so it’s “not going to comment on it,” pointing out that the rules it enforced against Florida are “named the delegate selection rules.” Dean has also sidestepped the issue in his recent swing of television interviews, including Meet the Press.
Dean’s stubborn silence has led skilled commentators like Politico’s Roger Simon to conclude: “Under Hillary Rules, Clinton counts the popular vote in Florida, where candidates were forbidden to campaign. The Democratic Party does not recognize the results of the Florida primary.” Contacted by the Voice and asked to point out when the DNC has discounted the Florida popular vote, Simon referred us to his own story of August 27, 2007, when he reported on the DNC decision to reject the seating of “all its delegates,” as Simon put it. In fact, Simon wrote in that story that the popular vote in the Florida primary would still matter “because the media concentrate mostly on the beauty contest anyway,” predicting that “the winner of Florida would still get an early boost in the process.”
Unless Dean explains on the record what his minions say off it—namely that the delegate disqualification does not cancel out the popular preferences of a record number of Floridian Democrats—the numbers crunchers like NBC’s Chuck Todd will continue to routinely portray the margin as 500,000, when, with Florida, it would be 200,000.
Dean, Simon, Todd and every other talking or writing head on the national scene recognizes that the discounting of the Florida vote—which no one even bothers to explain—shapes the rest of the discussion about the race. With Florida, Clinton has a chance of being ahead in the popular vote at the end of the primaries. Without it, she doesn’t. That makes the consequences of not counting it as partisan as the consequences of counting it. Of course, the Clinton camp is trying to make a similar case for counting Michigan, but, as Simon and others have noted, Obama’s withdrawal from that primary makes any inclusion of the Michigan tally unfair on its face.
Neutral observers make the reasonable argument that Florida’s vote should not be considered part of the national comparison because Barack Obama has repeatedly narrowed margins in states where he has campaigned, and neither he nor Clinton were allowed to campaign in Florida. The absence of a campaign, they say, heightened the value of her greater name recognition. The fact is, though, that Obama alone did a major national cable advertising buy that ran in Florida for eight days leading up to the January 29 contest. That buy was designed for the 22-state Super Tuesday races, but instead of maximizing his exposure in the week before February 5, he stretched it out over two weeks, and saturated CNN and MSNBC before the Florida election. Combined with the national news coverage Obama had received since Iowa and the momentum that came with his South Carolina rout of Clinton, the cable buy made the Sunshine State’s primary close enough to a level playing field to count in popular tallies. Obama’s subsequent resistance to any effort to re-do it also undermines the critique of the January results.
Dean clearly hopes that his evasions on this elemental question of fairness will be seen as a demonstration of his unwillingness to take sides between the warring camps within his own party. It is the opposite. In the absence of an unambiguous statement clarifying the limits of the DNC’s delegate ruling, he is siding with Obama, whose recent conflating press releases have argued that “without the rogue states”—Florida and Michigan—“Obama is still up by 500,000 votes.” Everyone involved understands that it is Obama who is benefiting from the media decision not to include Florida’s vote in the popular vote boxscore that runs across every American television screen, on virtually every news channel, everyday.
Of course, the endlessly repeated omission of this vote, and Dean’s abdication, is not just affecting the candidates. It’s doubling the pain for Florida Democrats—not only are they invisible in the delegate tabulations, which the courts have ruled is clearly within the powers of the national party, they are phantoms in the popular tally, a nullification unsupported by any legal authority.
Since Dean isn’t talking, Ralph Dawson, his Yale roommate and member of the DNC Rules Committee, may be a window into his thinking. It was Dawson, a friend and adviser to Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, who made the motion to strip Florida of its delegates last year. An uncommitted superdelegate from New York, Dawson told the Voice: “My position is that the popular vote is a relevant concept because neither side is going to get to 2025 without superdelegates’ votes. When that happens, they can and should take into consideration whether it’s appropriate to consider Florida. Some would say yes, some would say no. The answer will be clear over time.”
Echoing Dean’s current state of indecision, Dawson argued peculiarly: “I have not come to a conclusion that it should count at this time. I think at some time, we could re-evaluate the votes.” Dawson did anticipate that Democrats might get to “the point where Florida’s ‘beauty contest’ will change” the popular vote winner. Should that happen, however, Dawson added: “But I’m not prepared to take it into consideration.” Dawson seems to be saying that he and his DNC friends will include Florida’s popular vote—much like its delegates—only after a nominee has been effectively determined without them.
Two other DNC allies, Donna Brazile, a power on the Rules Committee, and treasurer Andrew Tobias were in a similar state of avoidance. Tobias, who voted in the Florida primary, said he wasn’t willing to “make a statement” about whether his own vote should be counted in national popular comparisons. He said that party officials were “enthusiastically neutral” and seemed to think that his refusal to answer questions about counting the vote in his home state was an example of that, though the refusal was an implicit ratification of the Obama position.
Brazile battled the question rather than addressing it. Her email said: “There’s nothing in the rules” about popular votes “so this becomes a matter of personal preference.” But on the phone, she declined to say what “metric” she would use as a superdelegate in evaluating candidates. “I will not give credibility to one argument or another,” she said. Brazile also pointed out that the full popular vote in four caucus states is not being counted in the national tally either, and if it were, she said that would add to Obama’s total (if the primary rather than caucus results in one of those states, Washington, is factored into the ultimate popular vote tally, Obama’s gain from the four contests would be roughly 60,000 votes).
Mark Bubriski, a spokesman for Florida Democratic Party, whose leader Karen Thurman is uncommitted, certainly believes, as do many uncommitted would-be Florida delegates contacted by the Voice, that the popular vote should be part of the national calculations. “We have no say over what the national media does,” says Bubriski. “But the fact is 1.75 million voted, which was more than any other state that had voted at that point and in fact more than the other early states combined. The media should’ve been far more respectful of Florida voters.” State Senator Steve Geller, who says he’s also uncommitted, complained: “Somebody needs to explain why voters are being punished. It’s ridiculous how we have the highest voter turnout in Florida history and the votes are not being counted.”
Research assistance by: Kimberly Chin, Shaunna Murphy, Shea O'Rourke, Marguerite A. Suozzi, Adam Weinstein, John Wilwol
Though a bill that would bind New York’s votes in the Electoral College to the winner of the presidential popular vote has not moved in Albany, Illinois is the latest state to embrace an idea that has the potential to reshape the way we choose our president.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich signed a law earlier this week that will require Illinois to elect the president using the National Popular Vote. The move, which has won approval in New Jersey and Maryland, would prevent a repeat of the 2000 presidential election should it be approved in all 50 states.
Illinois is the 16th state to pass such a bill. In 2000 George W. Bush, despite his defeat in the popular vote to Al Gore by roughly 500,000 votes, was victorious after having won enough states through the Electoral College, including a hotly contested Florida race, to clinch the presidency.
“It is rare that we see such a sweeping reform move so swiftly,” said Common Cause President Bob Edgar, whose organization is a driving force behind the legislation. “Legislators are clearly picking up that citizens want every vote to count equally for president and that the candidate who gets the most votes should win.”
A lawyer and a close friend of John McCain, Jordan Wright has been collecting the merchandising detritus of presidential campaigns for five decades. Those stickers, signs, and (most importantly) buttons that Oval Office aspirants produce to woo Americans might seem like mere ephemera, but the items often last longer than campaign promises. In his years of collecting, which started at the age of 10 in Manhattan, Wright has amassed more than a million pieces of campaign memorabilia: items from the first George W. to today’s less-heralded version. This summer Wright’s collection will be the main exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, and will be on display from June through Election Day. A few weeks ago, the Voice had a chance to talk with Wright, who is the author of the new book Campaigning for President: Memorabilia from the Nation’s Finest Private Collection. Click here for a gallery of images from the collection.
Village Voice::This is a really interesting book, and is an exhaustive collection. How did you get started in all this — it had to do with Bobby Kennedy, yes?
Jordan Wright: Yeah, in 1968 Bobby Kennedy was running for president and I was 10 years old. I come from a very apolitical family, and in '68, the Vietnam War was raging, the civil rights movement was happening, the environmental movement was starting, and I could not get a conversation at home on these subjects. The straw that broke the camels back was that one day my dad came home with the evening Post, and said that “King’s been shot,” and I didn’t know we had a King. (But of course he was referring to Martin Luther King) So, one day coming home from school I got off at the wrong stop to stop at Bobby Kennedy’s headquarters next to Tony’s Pizzeria, and there they were talking about all things I was interested in, and as added bonus when I left, they gave me buttons. So I kept coming back. After a while, it occurred me that if Bobby Kennedy was giving out buttons, Hubert Humphrey was, Richard Nixon was, and I roamed around the city going from headquarters to headquarters picking up buttons.
VV: What I enjoy most about the book is seeing the transformations — how we’ve gone from woodcut broadsheets to this very party-line patriotic red-white-blue motif on everything. What do you think has changed the most about campaigning and campaign materials?
JW: The first thing to note is that things haven’t changed — the button, which is the standard bearer of all political material, was around with George Washington. There was a vendor that created a brass button, that said ‘Long Live the President’ as we would say: ‘Long live the Queen’ — it had the 13 states around the edge and Washington’s face in the center. Washington saw them and bought 11, and had the buttons from his coat replaced with them to wear for his swearing in. Buttons today look different but it’s the same concept. There’s been one change which is a mystery to me. In 1820s, with Andrew Jackson, they had backwards buttons, with the candidate’s name printed on the back. They had to be turned around (which is hard), to see that they supported Andrew Jackson, or whoever. It was strange — you had to get close to someone and ask “Can I touch your jacket?” to see their support.
Another thing is campaigns — people are so convinced campaigning has become so negative — there’s the comment from Ferrarro which is racist, stuff about the Clinton’s marriage, Giuliani and his son… but in first part of book, there is a picture of a one-foot China doll of McKinley with his suit that is made up of the American flag draped around him. And this China doll, when you turn upside down, you see this African American baby. [Note: McKinley was rumored to have fathered a child out of wedlock, and this was supposed to be a helpful reminder from his opponents of the rumors]
VV: That’s pretty much what happened to McCain in 2000 in South Carolina…
JW: Exactly, but we didn’t have anything concrete from that — here you have 3-D evidence. In all fairness the Republicans were not innocent. William Jennings Bryan, McKinley’s opponent — he’s famous now for the “Cross of Gold” speech – but then he was famous for giving speeches went on too long, and you had coffins that say ‘this child — ’ or ‘This man was talked to death’ given out by the Republicans.
VV: I have another question about the history of campaigning. Who had the best or most iconic stuff — is there anything that sticks out in your mind? For me, it looked like Teddy Roosevelt had the most interesting items, with his glasses, the teeth, the bear…
JW: I think you’re right to pick out Teddy Roosevelt, he was an important figure for long time, and had a lot to play off of — his teeth that were a whistle; he also handed out paper sheets you could cut out and wear as a mask. Can you imagine a Hillary mask that she would give out at the convention?
Another thing sticks out for me — in 1972, my family was split for first time down middle between Nixon and McGovern. One night, we had a large family dinner, and my father went around the table and asked everyone who they would vote for if there were an adult, or if they were a kid, who they were supporting. I had an uncle Nat, who kept avoiding father, finding something else to do — and my father, to this day, it is unwise to avoid him, it’s just better to get it out quick soon, because avoiding him only makes him more prosecutorial. My dad finally says, “just say it already, no one here is going to judge you, we’re split down the middle,” and my Uncle Nat got up and said in strongest voice possible: “I plan to vote for Gus Hall and Angela Davis of the Communist Party. I’ve voted communist my entire life” Earlier in the book, you can see a button for Eugene Debs that has his prisoner number on it [note: Debs was the first and only candidate to ever run from a jail cell — he was imprisoned for organizing an now-legal railroad server’s union]. Uncle Nat gave me the button with the prisoner number on it, which perhaps explains why my uncle Nat had such a hard career — he apparently wore this button and others like it regularly, which you can imagine was quite unpopular at the time.
VV: I think your story that begins with Bobby Kennedy is really interesting, particularly this year with the comparisons Obama has been getting to Bobby, JFK, MLK… do you see any really good items or interesting stuff in this year’s election?
JW: Harper Collins has me on book tour – I’ve gotten to go to all the primary states and others too. Let me tell you about my three favorite items.
No. 1 In New Hampshire, I got to go to the Rudy Giuliani boutique. Now, ‘boutique’ is a strange word – ladies run out and go to boutique, its not what you typically see at a campaign headquarters. So I go to the ‘boutique,’ and I bought a onesie. Do you know what a onesie is? It’s for newborns — a cotton one piece says “Rudy ‘08” on it. That’s pretty strange. How early do we want our child in psychoanalysis?
No. 2 – I’m in Des Moines, and it turns out Hillary Clinton also has boutique there. Now, the thing that catches my eye is piggy bank – I think “Isn’t that great? When I was kid, I had a piggy bank, and it taught be to save money.” But it says Hillary '08 on the side. Now, one thing everyone can agree about Clintons is that they are a money machine. And I think: “Is this another way of raising contributions?”
No. 3 –So, I’m on everyone’s list, people send me stuff all the time. When Bill Richardson dropped out of the race, he had already opened a political headquarters in Vegas, and I got sent a box with all sorts of stuff in it. The box had typical items — bumper stickers, buttons, signs — but my absolute favorite was a "Bill Richardson in ‘08" thong. How important is the stripper vote really?
I want to talk you about another myth that’s right now all over papers and TV — people talk as if money only now started play role in politics. In 1896, McKinley refused leave his front porch to campaign — if wanted to hear the President speak had to go to front porch of his house. Imagine that today — would anyone show up in Chappaqua? He had a good friend (and everyone should have a friend like this), named Mark Hanna, who was big in Ohio industry. He went around country raising money, eventually raising 3 million dollars. In 1896, this was a phenomenal sum. The deal was, if you gave money to Hannah and this fund, you never had to ask for an appointment to see the president. You could just go to the White House and say “Hey, I’m Duncan, I gave money to the fund, and I’m here to see the President.” In the book there’s an item — it shows a bicycle with McKinley and [running mate] Hobart on the wheels, but driving the bike is the money man himself — and I think that says it all.
VV: Now, I don’t know if this is just me, but I never really see anyone just around town wearing presidential memorabilia. Who actually uses this stuff?
JW: For most of our history, we were a pre-literate society. Candidates had to come up with things that caught peoples’ eyes that were creative and made people want to vote. In 1892 Cleveland was running against Harrison — and he gave out mini mugs, about a quarter inch high. Cleveland gave whiskey parties, people got drunk, and after you’d put this whiskey mug in your pocket and people would say “I’ll vote for Cleveland, he got me drunk.” This is hardly issue-focused, but it did the job.
Now, Jimmy Carter, when he got in financial trouble, cut expenses by cutting buttons from his campaign materials, and the number of volunteers dropped off precipitously. A lot of buttons are made as mementos. People will say “Obama’s campaign is historic, I want a memento.” Same with Clinton. “I think McCain’s a war hero, I want something with his picture on it.”
There’s an interesting picture on the front of the book. The 1890’s had a button with billowing smoke from a factory — this was supposed to indicate prosperity. Can you imagine any candidate doing this today? We have completely changed our minds about what is acceptable.
VV: Tell me more about the museum you are establishing.
JW: On June 24th, there’s going to be an exhibition of 700 items at City Museum of New York. It should be very exciting — it’s a lot of stuff in the book, but it will also highlight the special role New York has played in presidential politics. Here’s one story that comes to mind. I was writing about Al Smith last night because of all the firsts this campaign, and he was the first Catholic to run for president. In response Hoover put out “Real Christian for President” type buttons — as if Catholics are not Christians. There was a rumor that when Smith was Governor [of New York], he used to go to the Holland Tunnel, supposedly going straight to the Vatican, and get his instruction from the Pope. Anyone in New York knows the Holland Tunnel does not go anywhere as interesting as Rome — so clearly only people not in New York would believe this.
I’ve given my collection to the Museum of Democracy. I’ve given over 1.25 million items, and the mayor is helping to find a spot, and we’ve got a few in mind. I want children and adults to see the long history of democracy, to see what it took to get people voting. With this election, it’s neat to see lot of people involved, but up to this year the trend was the opposite, with fewer and fewer involved in voting. I think if people could see the materials, even the negative campaigning, and the creativity that went into getting people involved in democracy, it would be fantastic. Until then, I’m doing other exhibitions around the country — we still haven’t found the perfect spot for a permanent museum.
All this occurred in about 2 years and 2 months. I’ve been collecting for a really long time, but I’ve never thought anyone found it interesting because the only people that saw it were my friends. I happen know John McCain quite well, and one day while having breakfast with him, he just asked “What’s going on with collection?” He insisted: “You have to do museum, and have to do a book.” This all came around real quickly, and it’s really a dream come true. It really is a surprise to me, this was kinda a big secret I had for the longest time, and now they’ve sent me around to all these interesting places. I’m amazed all these people are coming out to see the traveling museum and that people like the book. I was just dead wrong — people find this interesting.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 11:20 AM, March 27, 2008
As students filed out of the great hall of Cooper Union after Sen. Barack Obama's speech on the American economy this morning, a young woman looked at another student and said, "That wasn't very rock star."
It wasn't. There were no Stevie Wonder songs. No chants of "Yes, We Can." This was not electrifying; this was a wonky Obama laying out six core principals of new government regulation designed to prevent another bubble-bust cycle that has the nation in recession and millions facing foreclosure.
"We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales," Obama said from the same podium where Abraham Lincoln once spoke. "The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both."
It was also remarkable in that Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who flirted with a presidential run himself, introduced Obama and called the November election "perhaps the most important decision of our lives."
In a moment of levity in an otherwise somber affair, Bloomberg thanked Obama for picking up the tab when the two had a breakfast meeting. And before Obama delved into his policy paper, he told the billionaire mayor that he expected some sort of payback. "The mayor was a cheap date that morning and New York has some good steakhouses," said Obama.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 2:53 PM, March 26, 2008
Sen. Barack Obama "will deliver a major speech on the economy" at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art on Thursday morning, according to his campaign. And apparently the school had a number of tickets set aside for students, who lined up along nearly the entire length of Cooper Square at about 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
There must have been a few hundred of students, including these two happy students who scored a pair.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 4:00 PM, March 19, 2008
Last week, we came across a pro-Hillary YouTube video that we compulsively watched despite a fear that it might cause seizures. This week, we came across another. It might not be as wonderfully awful as last week's Hil vid, but "Hillary4U&Me "—with its Prince-style spelling and Jackson Five-inspired melody—is pretty special too.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 11:42 AM, March 18, 2008
From the prepared speech as provided by Obama's presidential campaign:
On Rev. Wright and Israel:
"But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."
On the Rev. Wright himself:
"The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS."
On Wright, Obama's white grandmother's casual racism and Geraldine Ferraro's comments:
"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias. "
On black and white rage, and "the racial stalemate":
"This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union. "
Posted by Michael Clancy at 5:27 PM, March 14, 2008
Can someone explain why we keep watching this video even though it makes us feel ill? It's not about the candidate. Just the song. Don't hate us when it gets stuck in your head and haunts your dreams.
Once again, Ralph Nader has thrown his hat into the presidential race. The perennial candidate spoke with the Voice about corporate greed, impeaching Bush and why he thinks Obama and Clinton are one in the same.
Village Voice: What made you decide to run for president again?
Ralph Nader: Same reason as last time. The two parties, in varying degrees, have shut down the government, preventing us from having a chance to improve our country. They’ve turned the government over to giant corporations. When any parties or any government keep us from trying to reduce the hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, the consumer fraud, and the deterioration of the public works, and the war in Iraq, you know, you go out and run. It’s just so obvious. We can’t tolerate it. These two parties have spoiled our country, spoiled our elections, spoiled our government and they have the arrogance to say that no one else could go on the ballot to give voters a broader choice. It’s actually against the voters.
VV: Do you think things are worse now in America than they have been in the past?
RN: Oh yes. Every year the concentration of power grips local, state and national government in the hands of more and more multinational corporations. And the result is predictable. Complete waste and distortion of public budgets. Half of the federal government’s operating budget is now the military budget. We don’t have a Soviet Union anymore, it just keeps growing and growing and growing. Massive weapons systems that have no strategic value other than to make money for Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. Read the papers. Read the Times, read the Village Voice, read Business Week. Corporate crime waves.
It’s political bigotry. That’s what I’m saying now. Anybody that says, “don’t run,”…political bigotry. You can oppose us if we run. You can oppose a persons speech. But if you say, “do not speak, do not run,” then you’re engaged in political bigotry and censorship.
VV: Were there any mainstream candidates in the Democratic Party that you would have supported instead of running?
RN: Well, I’ve always told people to vote for [Dennis] Kucinich. I like [Mike] Gravel’s national referendum idea, which is not kooky, it’s rooted in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [John] Edwards, he made sure the Democrats rediscovered the word poverty, instead of just talking middle class, and he established a critique of the corporations. It’s not very fundamental, but at least he put it out there. I have no idea why he dropped out…he could have had a broker role [at the Democratic convention].
VV: What are your thoughts on Barack Obama?
RN: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton…these people are largely corporate Democrats. He gives a fantastic speech, he’s a brilliant tactician, but basically if you look at his Senate record it’s very much leaning toward the corporate view of things. He’s not a challenging Senator like Senator [Howard] Metzenbaum or Senator [Paul] Wellstone. His proposals almost were nil on corporate crime, fraud and abuse. The only thing he did was the ethics bill which was OK, but it’s not really going to reduce much of [the] corporate power in Washington. I think he’s going to be a big disappointment if he becomes president, other than the symbolic advance of having an African-American reach the highest office. That’s not without importance, especially overseas, but he’s also raising expectation levels very high and I don’t think his Senate record or what he is ignoring is going to fulfill them.
VV: Do you still think impeachment is worth pursuing?
RN: Of course. We have two outlaws in the White House, recidivists, who have committed more impeachable offenses, regularly and daily, than any presidency in history. And they get away with it. It’s such an upside-down world. These guys have violated the FISA Act repeatedly, surveillance without a judicial warrant, that’s a felony. That’s a five-year maximum jail term. They do it regularly. Now they want to change the law so they can get away with it. The systemic torture, the violation of federal law as well as the Geneva Convention, a criminal, unconstitutional war in Iraq. We’ve got arrests of thousands of people without charges, throwing them in jail without lawyer. In the U.S., we’re talking about. And yet Chairman Rep. John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee refuses to even have a hearing, never mind an impeachment inquiry. And that’s where we’re at. We’re basically on the way to demonstrating that presidents can systemically violate the constitution and the laws of the land an get away with it.
VV: Aside from impeachment, what’s at the top of the Ralph Nader presidential agenda?
RN: Cracking down on corporate crime, fraud and abuse, and developing a systemic deterrence to it. Single-payer health insurance, which is more efficient. Redirecting public budgets by drastically reducing corporate welfare and a bloated military budget. We have to open up the presidential debates. Public funding of public campaigns.
VV: When you announced that you were running, we saw a number of columns from people you have worked with in the past who say by running again you are “tarnishing your legacy.” How do you answer that?
RN: That’s basically an irrelevant comment. I’m worried about the 100,000 people who die in hospitals from malpractice, the 58,000 who die from occupational disease and trauma, or the millions of people who are ripped off in all kinds of ways by commercial interests and also by the government. I’ve never found one person who makes that comment who doesn’t have a good job, health insurance and a good pension. You know it’s the real America, working families, and they say, “we want people to stand up for us.” This is just the liberal intelligentsia.
Posted by Michael Clancy at 11:49 AM, February 27, 2008
This is not an endorsement of the candidate. It's an endorsement of the campaign song. And "Viva Obama 2008" might be one of the catchiest campaign songs since Frank Sinatra changed the "High Hopes" lyrics for JFK in 1960.
If you're ever in the Oxnard area in California, stop by and see the Mariachi Aguilas De Mexico. They play brunch at Ruby's Cafe every Sunday.
English translation of the "Viva Obama 2008" lyrics after the jump.
"Viva Obama 2008"
To the candidate who is Barack Obama
I sing this corrido with all my soul
He was born humble without pretension
He began in the streets of Chicago
Working to achieve a vision
To protect the working people
And bring us all together in this great nation
Viva Obama! Viva Obama!
Families united and safe and even with a health care
plan
Viva Obama! Viva Obama!
A candidate fighting for our nation
It doesn't matter if you're from San Antonio
It doesn't matter if you're from Corpus Christi
From Dallas, from the Valley, from Houston or from El
Paso
What matters is that we vote for Obama
Because his struggle is also our struggle, and today
we urgently need a change
Let's unite with our great friend
Viva Obama! Viva Obama!
Families united and safe and even with a health care
plan
Viva Obama! Viva Obama!
A candidate fighting for our nation
Posted by John DeSio at 12:46 PM, February 7, 2008
Barack Obama’s is locked in a virtual tie for convention delegates with slim delegate lead over Hillary Clinton, but Democratic Party rules could still shut him out of the presidential nomination despite his strong performance in the primaries.
At issue are so-called “superdelegates,” former and current elected officials and other Democratic power-players who are appointed as delegates to the party’s national convention and can choose their preferred candidate with no regard for how their state has voted. New York’s superdelegates include, among others, former President Bill Clinton, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and every Democratic member of the State’s congressional delegation.
Within the primary voting system Obama has put together a small lead over Clinton, with 635 delegates compared to her 630, according to CNN, though other counts vary. But Clinton has maintained a strong majority of those superdelegates that have made their official pledge, and leads Obama 783-709 when those numbers are factored in (other superdelegate counts give Clinton a larger lead.)
Obama is well aware of the disparity and has sent a message to the Democratic establishment on those superdelegates, stating that they "would have to think long and hard about how they approach the nomination when the people they claim to represent have said, 'Obama's our guy.'" Obama’s message is clear: do not subvert the will of the people.
The superdelegate system used by the Democrats was put into effect during the 1970’s, as a means for party officials to maintain their influence in the face of reforms that arose from the 1972 presidential campaign of former senator and liberal stalwart George McGovern, said Tom De Luca ,a professor of political science at Fordham University.
The superdelegates are bound to nothing but their own opinions, said De Luca, and make up a strong 20 percent of the total Democratic delegate count of 4,049. Should Clinton’s lead among superdelegates vault her to the nomination, despite her defeat to Obama at the hands of the people, it could mean trouble for Democrats in November.
“I think it would be very, very bad for the Democrats,” said De Luca. “It might really demobilize some of the Obama constituency in the November election, which could well be very close.”
Harlem State Senator Bill Perkins was the first New York elected official to forsake his hometown senator and endorse Obama’s campaign, and he too is concerned that the will of the people could be cast aside at the convention, all in the name of party politics. Obama’s campaign is one of hope, said Perkins, and those hopes could be dashed by the superdelegate system, shutting Obama out of his rightful nomination “not on the basis of merit.”
“When you see a situation that has the potential to reverse that, by virtue of some sort of undemocratic, backroom machinations, it would be shameful,” said Perkins. “Worse than that, the agenda for change that everybody is singing now thanks to Obama would have a sour note.”
As a check on potential disaster the superdelegate system does have its purpose, said De Luca. It gives party insiders the ability to control a maverick candidate, preventing him or her from seizing the nomination and doing potential harm to the party in November. But while Obama might not fit the preconceived notion of a Democratic insider he is certainly no radical, and a potential defeat engineered by backroom party politics would leave a bad taste in the collective mouths of his energized supporters.
“Obama’s an outsider in a sense, but he’s not Dennis Kucinich,” said De Luca. “I’m not going to say it would be devastating, but I think that would have a very bad impact on Clinton’s ability to mobilize Obama’s supporters in the general election.”
Both De Luca and Perkins agreed that, should Obama lose the nomination only because he lacks a majority of superdelegates, it would put a lot of pressure on the Democratic Party to eliminate the superdelegate system in its entirety. De Luca did see several ways out for the Democrats, noting first that more than half of the superdelegates have not yet committed to any particular candidate, giving them time to gauge Obama and Clinton’s momentum and make a decision based on that, giving Obama a chance to minimize Clinton’s superdelegate lead.
De Luca also pointed out that while it might sting a bit, a Clinton victory propelled by a superdelegate majority will not be crippling to the party is Obama’s delegate lead is only a handful of votes, as it stands today. If Obama had a large delegate lead and was pushed out by superdelegates, it would cause a figurative riot at the convention, said De Luca.
“It would be a bad blow for the party,” said De Luca, “and a lot of the people who got involved because of the Obama campaign would be very bitter about it.”
Perkins certainly would be. “We can’t have a democracy that people don’t have faith in, particularly in terms of our party processes,” he said.
Posted by Mathilde Piard at 7:09 PM, February 5, 2008
Al Schwendtner, a volunteer at the NYPIRG voter complaint hotline, reaches for a rare call on Super Tuesday. The hotline only had 120 calls by noon.
As a raucous crowd celebrated the Giants’ Superbowl win in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday morning, Cathy Soll sat in a basement office a half-block away, waiting for the phone to ring. She was one of about a dozen volunteers staffing a voter hotline, and she had a lot of time on her hands.
“It’s disgusting,” she complained. “Why did the parade have to be today? It could have been on any other day. And I’m a Giants fan!”
The hotline, sponsored by the New York Public Interest Research Group, has operated during the general election for years, but Super Tuesday marked the first time the group had organized one up for a primary. Given the highly charged nature of this race, and fact that the hotline received nearly 3,000 calls in 15 hours during the 2004 election, the group was expecting to be busy, said Neal Rosenstein, government reform coordinator at NYPIRG. But by noon, six hours after the polls opened, only 120 calls had come in – something organizers suspected had a lot to do with Giants-mania.
“The parade is a tremendous interference,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause NY, which works with NYPIRG on the hotline. She blamed Mayor Michael Bloomberg for sending out “a lousy message” when he set the victory parade for the same day as the primary.
“What is more important, citizen participation through voting, or watching a Giants parade?” she said. “There’s no reason why it had to be today. Today, the business of the city should have been elections.”
The mayor’s office did not return calls asking for comment.
Ultimately, of course, it wasn’t really the lack of calls that hotline staffers were worried about; it was whether the low numbers meant that fewer people were voting. Volunteer Sonia Goldstein said she asked some of the fans she had met on the way whether they were voting. “They said not today.”
Board of Elections spokeswoman Valerie Vasquez said turnout figures wouldn’t be available until after polls closed at 9 p.m., but she did agree that voters at the three polling places along the parade route had probably been “temporarily inconvenienced” by the celebration.
However, since polling stations were open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., voters had plenty of time before and after the parade to cast their ballot, she said. In addition, the board was in constant communication with the New York Police Department; Vasquez said she hoped officers would facilitate voters who were trying to get through the crowds lining the parade route.
The board itself, however, was taking no chances when it came to parade-related inconveniences. Normally, members of its emergency response team work out of headquarters, but the board moved them to other locations around the city for fear that the crowds would prevent them from responding quickly in the event of a polling-place problem.
In between calls at the hotline, staffers discussed voter politics. Rosenstein redecorated the room, putting up posters marking off the number of days till the general election. In one of the cubicles, a bottle of orange juice and three pots of different cream cheese lay next to two bags full of bagels. Almost everyone sipped coffee.
Each time the phone rang, everyone grabbed for it simultaneously, hoping to be the first to answer. “It’s a race!” joked first-time volunteer Allison Tupper.
Ed Parra, 24, who was also volunteering for the first time, however, groaned as he heard cheers from the Giants fans outside. “Oh, I want to go out there,” he said.
His friend Elisain Pena, 22, understood his pain — but reminded him that it was all for a good cause. “I wanted to be there too,” Pena said. “But this is kind of more important.”
Posted by Shea O'Rourke at 4:56 PM, February 5, 2008
Stephen Salvia says he thinks Obama doesn't have the wisdom and experience to be president.
“Yaaaaaaaay, America!” was the sarcastic war cry of a 20-something skateboarder today as he exited the Union Square subway and swam through a hoard of Hillary and Obama volunteers.
“Vote for Hillary!” a woman yelled to a passing crowd of four-year-olds on a field trip. No luck there. She tried again, a little louder: “Vote for Hillary!”
“No thanks — I’m a Democrat,” snapped a man with a frightening resemblance to the elder Paul Teutel of “American Chopper.”
But there was some genuine political support today among the lunchtime rush-hour traffickers at Union Square.
“Good morning!” one volunteer kept saying, despite the post-noon status, as if to remind people that the day was still young and ripe with time to vote.
“We’ve gotten some great enthusiasm,” said local playwright and actress Danai Gurira, who was handing out flyers for Obama.
Gurira didn’t plan to volunteer this afternoon. She had already worked her local polling station this morning, and was rushing through breakfast at Union Square’s Whole Foods so she could get back home to her writing. But as she looked down on the commons, she had a frightening realization: all the sign-holders there were for Hillary.
This was no mistake, she learned when she called a local Obama organizer — the campaign was purposefully concentrating volunteers near the biggest polling sites, none of which are around Union Square.
“Still, I decided we needed to be represented here,” Gurira said, “so I came down to let people know there’s an alternative to the establishment — a viable and powerful alternative.”
It’s a good thing she did. The park’s politicos, all standing around the main subway entrance at the park’s southwest corner, were overwhelmingly pro-Hillary. Eight held traditional red, white and blue Hillary signs, while 12 International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) members sported black and yellow “IUPAT for Hillary” gear.
“We’re a union, she’s pro-union, and this is a union town,” bridge painter Stephen Salvia gave as an explanation for IUPAT’s support of Hillary. “Everything she does as a Democrat is stuff that’s fallen through the cracks with the Republicans.”
But Salvia’s 12-hour volunteer shift for Hillary doesn’t mean he opposes Obama, he said.
“I give him great credit for what he’s done,” Salvia said. “He’s got great ideas, he’s a fantastic speaker, and I think there’s a lot of potential there, but it’s a little too early in terms of age and wisdom. As a second to Hillary, he can learn from her and Bill, but he needs a little polishing. Now if she wins now and he decides to run again in four years, she’s going to have her hands full.”
The Obama cluster would beg to differ, although there had been no direct confrontations — the volunteers were as friendly and detached from each other as the politicians themselves were in the last debate.
“It’s alright – we don’t mind them,” Gurira said. “Plus, they look big and luring, while we look lovely and welcoming.”
Like Gurira, Obama volunteer Eric Mill was purely positive. “Real change, y’all! Yes we can!”
Mill was in good spirits because as a long-time Obama supporter, he’s finally seeing vast support.
“I find it fascinating that since Obama has caught on, it’s been like wildfire, as if people have really been looking for a way to look beyond Hillary,” Mill said. “I think we need to look at the reasoning behind why so many people are eager for change.”
And while Mill conceded that the Clinton campaign has a larger pool of volunteers in Hillary’s home state, he said the Obama campaign is doing just fine, thank you very much.
“I visited headquarters yesterday and early this morning, and it’s really crazy there,” he said. “They have a lot of people coming in, making last-minute donations, the phone banks are very full, and they’re deploying people to as many stations around the city as possible … There’s a lot of emotion and chaos and people getting really stressed and harried – all the signs of a really organized campaign.”
Posted by Shea O'Rourke at 11:38 AM, February 5, 2008
Two Obama volunteers — Peggy Kerry, the sister of Sen. John Kerry, and Steven Nicks, a member of Obama's LGBT Policy Committee — get ready for action as the sun rises in the West Village.
Ray Dominguez represents the change we’ve been hearing so much about this campaign season.
“In 2004, when I watched Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, I was a Republican,” the Obama campaign volunteer recalled this morning while handing out flyers at a West Village Starbucks. “But I found myself saying, ‘This man’s going to be president one day.’ I really said that. As a Republican, I wanted not to like him, but that was an outstanding speech.”
That was just the start of Dominguez’s turnaround. Since 2004, well, he’s become a little jaded with the current administration — as he says of his switch to Democrat, “Seven years of this will do it to you.”
Then came Iowa.
“I was always kind of cynical about Obama’s chances, but after Iowa, I knew I had to be a part of this.”
So Dominguez got up at 4:30 this morning, after a night of Giants celebrations, to volunteer in a day-long effort to win votes. Along with several other volunteers, he’s working from the Sheridan Square Starbucks — just one of 19 Obama hubs in Manhattan, 14 in Brooklyn, seven in the Bronx, five in Queens and one in Staten Island.
At 6 a.m., Dominguez and two fellow organizers fought the morning darkness and the sleepy Sinatra tunes with talk of their hopes for the day, with a side of today’s Komodo Dragon Blend.
One of the first volunteers to arrive was Nancy Talbot, who, along with her husband, was a long-time supporter of the Clintons after her husband attended Oxford with Bill Clinton in the late ‘60s and was in Hilary’s class at Yale Law in the early ‘70s. But a few years ago, when the Talbots were living in Chicago, a friend turned them on to a rising state senator.
“It is time for a change,” Talbot said, clamping her hands together. “I am an old foot soldier, and I am so thrilled and excited to have these young people telling me how to take action.”
Talbot headed out into the cold, equipped with a new cardboard sign — she gave her last one to a passing bus driver who wanted to show his support for Obama as he drove around the city.
Little by little, more volunteers filtered in, including Senator John Kerry’s sister, Peggy Kerry, who organized a Women for Obama rally in New York last weekend.
“This campaign is more exciting than my brother’s campaign – I can say that,” Kerry said. “I moved here in 1968 and got involved in the McCarthy campaign and the anti-war movement, and this resembles that. It’s grassroots, and it’s absolutely incredible.”
Kerry popped in and out, conversing with volunteer Steven Nicks about how best to run the day’s operations. Stickers should go out early to promote visibility, they agreed. The basic facts flyers can go to people on the subways, but the more persuasive flyers should go to people at the polls who already think they’ve made up their minds. And by all means, assign people to the high-priority spots first, like P.S. 3, P.S. 41 and the Westbeth artist community.
Nicks is the man leading the morning’s volunteers, taking cell phone numbers and walking them through the rules — don’t go closer than 100 feet from a polling place, and be courteous if an old lady snaps that she’s for McCain.
After all, Nicks knows to pick his battles. As a member of Obama’s 20-person LGBT Policy Committee, he has met and spoken with Obama several times in his fight to encourage political dialogue about LGBT issues.
So far, so good.
“His campaign is very open in terms of really trying to reach out to make sure people have their voice inside the campaign.” Nicks said. He’s actually very progressive on LGBT issues. When he was in the Illinois state senate, he sponsored an employment non-discrimination act that got passed, and it was fully inclusive so it included transgender people as well. He’s for full repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which by contrast Senator Clinton is not.”
Perhaps that’s why, when John Edwards left the race, many of the campaign’s LGBT leadership team joined the fight for Obama.
And while advocates like Nicks would prefer a candidate who supported their rights all the way, Obama’s stance is a step in the right direction, Nicks said.
“It really is a question of words and not a question of rights,” Nicks said. “He’s such an egalitarian that his underlying motivations are for quality for all people, so it really comes from a good place, not a calculated place.”
Posted by Michael Clancy at 10:59 AM, February 5, 2008
A ticker tape parade for the Giants. Twenty-two states hold presidential primaries. And to top it all off: it's Fat Tuesday, the last day of Mardi Gras. This is ain't your ordinary Tuesday, and we'll try and keep up with the action.
For starters, here's a real conversation that took place this morning between a registered Democrat and a registered Independent.
Democrat: So, who are you voting for?
Independent: I can't vote in the primaries in New York. I'm an independent.
Democrat: Oh my God! Really? Do you care? You're really not voting?
Independent: Yeah, I know. It's never mattered that much to me. I guess Mark Green versus Freddie Ferrer stung a little.
Democrat: This is the one I've waited a lifetime for. This is the one I've been registered as a Democrat my whole life for. I can't wait for this one.
This is the press release Howard Dean, whose offices were picketed this week by hundreds of angry Floridians, should issue as soon as possible:
Though a bill that would bind New York’s votes in the Electoral College to the winner of the presidential popular vote has 
A lawyer and a close friend of John McCain, Jordan Wright has been collecting the merchandising detritus of presidential campaigns for five decades. Those stickers, signs, and (most importantly) buttons that Oval Office aspirants produce to woo Americans might seem like mere ephemera, but the items often last longer than campaign promises. In his years of collecting, which started at the age of 10 in Manhattan, Wright has amassed more than a million pieces of campaign memorabilia: items from the first George W. to today’s less-heralded version. This summer Wright’s collection will be the main exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, and will be on display from June through Election Day. A few weeks ago, the Voice had a chance to talk with Wright, who is the author of the new book Campaigning for President: Memorabilia from the Nation’s Finest Private Collection. Click 
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