Thoughts on Edwards

I had a sinking feeeling when I first heard about the National Enquirer story, and then reading Edwards' responses I felt like he was guilty of having an affair. This is when no one from the MSM was writing about this out of deference for Elizabeth (who must be really steamed.)

I kept hoping however that my instincts were wrong. Ah well, you know how that turned out. Now my gut tells me that the baby is his. Why else would she refuse to demand a paternity test even though Edwards has offered?

Ergh, pretty depressing stuff. My best thoughts to Elizabeth and his family at this time. I just wish politicians were able to control themselves.

Hillary and Howard, Obama needs to fight back

I don't know, but I would guess that Hillary and Howard Dean have a working relationship, but that if Dean supported anyone, it would be Edwards or Obama. Obama because he is running the 50 state strategy and understands the need to engage more people into the Democratic party, to open it up and make it inclusive.

Well, one of the best things that Dean ever did was to change the primary/caucus system so that it included the more diverse states of Nevada (APIA and Latino voter concentration) and South Carolina (African American voters), not to mention, it increased geographic diversity. So while I feel bad that the people of Michigan and Florida don't get to have their delegates count, it was a compromise. And yes, these two states also have a lot of minorities, but their state party leaders decided to muck up the whole process by cutting in line. Hillary should not go and explode the delicate truce by demanding now that these voters are heard when her campaign was more than eager to disenfranchise Casino workers on the caucus strip.

Actually, I have to say that this was a friggin' BRILLIANT strategy by the H-camp - they distracted the Obama campaign with a head feint while beating them with their organizing of other workers near the Strip. Because the lawsuit was bogus, they knew it was bogus, and the judge knew it was bogus. But they knew it would draw media attention, and also the resources and energy of the Obama campaign and throw them off their game. I have to admit that they are excellent at practicing sleight of hand, or "pay no attention to the left hand that is going to sucker punch you when you least expect it."

By winning over Casino workers and turning out other union members, whose leadership FAILED to give them some direction for months, they did an artful job. Of course, they also provided the GOP with fodder for all the upcoming elections to disenfranchise Democratic voters and union members. But nevermind the long term view as long as Hillary can win.

Also, Asian Americans in Nevada apparently voted 2 to 1 for Hill and Bill, whereas Latinos voted 3 to 1, an astonishing lead. I wouldn't be surprised at all if these figures didn't match the national sentiment.

Lastly, I wonder if Hillary calling attention to gaining the delegates of Michigan and Florida isn't another feint designed to draw attention away from something else. I gotta say, the Clintonites understand how to spin, what will lure reporters pads and pens more than anything else, and they know how to use it. They might complain that they don't get good press and well actually the worst press, and they might but they also know how to work it.

Really lastly, when is Obama going to get some surrogates who go negative on the Clintons? He's expending all his energy attacking Bill, for whom there is some nostalgia (if only because we remember him so fondly compared to the current piss poor excuse for a national leader that we have.) So Obama has to disengage from that while shining his bright hopeful beacon smile and getting Jesse Jackson Jr and nother notables to be hitting the Clintons hard. I understand that it's not supposed to be politics as usual but there are ways to hit the Clintons without slandering their character.

Also, Hillary is basically setting Bill up like some kind of giant media-sucking net, to take and deflect all the blows. Meanwhile hillary's up to something, I don't know what shape but I can feel it.

He needs to hit hard, and now, because the New York Times endorsement is not insignificant. I mean, I knew it was coming for Hillary because she's their home state senator (or carpetbagger, if you prefer) and well, it's going to do some damage.

Okay, last bit I promise, but so much the day before South Carolina. Obama's folks have answered my Fantasy Democratic Administration prayers and are floating the idea of Edwards as Attorney General. So exciting! (Well, if you can trust bob Novak farther than you can throw him...) Oops - I had Edwards as Labor and Spitzer as AG but I think both would be great in either position. Edwards is a fantastic trial attorney.

Democratic South Carolina debate thoughts

Wow, this was the hardest hitting Democratic debate so far.

First, why do all the (mostly white) political commentators keep saying, wow, race is being talked about? or "Wow, race is an issue" like dumbasses?!?! It's a lil ridiculous folks. Obama self-identifies as black, but also as global. Of course we;re going to talk about race. (And a big thank you goes to Howard Dean.)

What was interesting is that the format of the debate was formal debate with moderator in the first half, candidates in chairs without rules for the second half. Weirdly, the first half had more hard-hitting back and forth and some moments where audience members (and I) went "ouch!" at candidate's statements. But in the chairs, the three candidates (Edwards, Hillary and Obama) were more relaxed and actually exchanged boxing gloves for white ones of civility.

Hillary was really throwing a lot of stuff at Obama, and I was semi-surprised that Edwards also piled onto Obama with her, landing harder punches esp on the healthcare stuff.

Edwards, again, hits Obama with greater dexterity than Hillary manages, this time on single-payer:

The problem with this argument is you can make exactly the same argument about Social Security," he says of Obama's plan not to insist that everyone buy health care.

Hillary piles on, to make her case: "This is kind of like the present vote[s]."

Obama responds on a point that's very much subject to how much the plan winds up costing: whether or not a mandate will be "affordable enough."

I have to say again that I was kinda surprised by Edwards landing these blows, and that it seemed the tactical and tacit alliance between Edwards and Obama that seemed to be in place earlier has switched. I don't know why it's switched now, in a state like South Carolina, in front of a predominantly black voting audience, but it has. And it doesn't look good. I understand that Edwards' campaign might be pissed for personal reasons about the UNITE HERE endorsement, esp since the union's former chief of staff is an Edwards adviser, but I'm pretty sure it goes beyond that. Edwards has an anti-Hillary line, and anti-establishment line, and he started hitting Obama after Obama's endorsement and subsequent rollout of ads on his behalf because well, Obama was definitely hitting Edwards and Hillary on independent expenditures by unions.

Nobody saw that one coming: Edwards — for tactical reasons, or out of pure courtroom instinct — pressed Clinton's assault on Obama's "present" votes, and the question — unanswered at that point — of why Obama hadn't just voted "no."

"You criticize Hillary, you criticize me for our votes," he said, trying to deny Obama the moral high ground he'd sought.

Edwards asked "why you voted present, rather than yes or no, when you had a chance to vote up or down," he said.

Obama responded that the present votes were meant to signal "technical problems with a piece of legislation" he might otherwise have voted for, or, in other cases, strategy -- a response that's borne out in many of the cases they're talking about but doesn't help with the broader case that there's a gap between the clarity of his rhetoric and the pragmatism of his politics. (Though whether that's a problem is a different question.)

Edwards was really convincing and eloquent on this one, and I know it landed. Ouch.

A particularly BAD moment for Obama was when he said that he has "never been for universal health care." Bad for Democratic activists to here, and bad for him to say. I understand he's still trying to appeal to the general election voter, but when even a high profile, nonpartisan and well-trusted (for some reason) group like the AARP is saying that we need universal healthcare, I think it is TOTALLY OKAY to say we need universal health care. There's a lot of room there for some primary attack ads, and it's a hard thing to back down from in a general election with the GOP. As someone who is really passionate about health care, it was a pretty disheartening moment.

Hillary tried to pull a "Obama voted against the war but then voted for funding it", which would have paralleled John Kerry's own admission "I voted for it before I voted against it" except I don't think that punch landed so much. I thought Obama did a good job of defusing the question of whether he thought "Bill Clinton was indeed the first black president" by saying that:

First, cleverly, he linked Clinton to Edwards, casting him not as a unique figure, but as one of many honorable white sons of the South who eschewed racism.

Then:

"I would have to investigate more Bill’s dancing ability and some of this other stuff before I accurately judged whether he was, in fact, a brother," Obama said, to laughter.

"I'm sure that can be arranged," Hillary responded.

This was smart, funny, and honors the white allies and detracts from white (liberal) guilt. This was in the second half when they were all seated, and Obama definitely tried to de-escalate the tension levels.

If I had to pick one person who won, I would actually say Edwards, because he got to point at the bickering children on stage and ask if their bickering was going to get children the health care that they deserve. So he got to rise above. But it was clear that the audience was with Obama and I wonder if the image of a black candidate being attacked from both sides by white candidates, one female, one male, won't be burnt into the eye sockets of many South Carolina voters.

One might ask what the difference between this and Clinton complaining last summer that the boys were ganging up on her because she was female (which I wasn't particularly sympathetic to - she was the national FRONT RUNNER by money, staff, and endorsements then, and that is what happens - it's simply smart politics) is that Obama isn't the clear national frontrunner. He is only the front-runner in SC. In fact, I would bet that although Obama has built a 50 state strategy, training and recruiting people who have never been involved in politics before, along Dean's ideals (having the resources to do so, unlike Edwards), Hillary still has better national name recognition, for better or worse. Time will tell whether his recruits are more or less adept than Dean's. And she has the Democratic establishment behind her especially in delegate-rich NY and CA. So it's not quite a toss up, but more analysis later.

NEXT UP: McCain Gets Swiftboated

Organize me: Obama v Edwards on how to organize, immigration

I was starting this as an update to the tidbits, but I decided that it was getting too long so created a new post.

A dkos blogger has a decent analysis of why the blogosphere broke for Edwards - namely, it's the size of the fight. I think a lot of bloggers, like myself, still hunger for the raw passion of Dean. Some chose to go with Edwards because he displays the most attack dog partisan ferocity. Me, I like some candidates more, some less. Obama's rebuttal and the dkos diarist who points this strategy out:

We don't need more heat, we need more light.


I think this is the companion piece to what he said in Boston at the 04 convention. It's the practical side of that "join together" speech. As an organizer, there are many tactics you can use at varying stages. When you build your coalition. When you have the power and the votes (and you always count your numbers.) When you make the ask. When you negotiate.

And it is and isn't just a matter of style and rhetoric and biography. It's true that Edwards and Obama agree on 95-99% of policy goals. This is why I am having such a hard time (still) picking between them - I think they bring different ideas, nuances, champion different sets of priorities. I think it's safe to say that Edwards is carrying the torch of some of the Deaniacs' anger and resentment at being shut out of the party, at being the Have Nots. Sometimes we forget that Obama, Harvard and Columbia educated, is also the archetypical Have Not who embodies the American Dream of so many immigrants. He made good, but he isn't leaving the community.

In some ways, what Obama is doing as a candidate, as a black man, echoes the tactics of Martin Luther King, Jr. and part of the civil rights movement. It is the "present yourself well in public" school - the school that says if you march with dignity and integrity, you will get more respect and credibility than if you try to tear down the whole system. So part of this is him, who he is, and how he sees the world. I think he genuinely wants to give people a chance, to hear their story. And a good organizer ALWAYS listens - for a soft spot, for an opening. It's incredibly hard to organize unlikely allies and to change people's minds who are not your traditional base. It's why I admire what Obama is doing in bringing new people into the Democratic fold, that he's staking his base on increasing the base. There's a reason why most campaigns with limited resources devote money, time and energy on known voters - it has definite payoffs on election day that are quantifiable. It's a leap of faith to trust in new voters, in unpredictable voters. Hard to model and notoriously fickle, and I respect his tremendous ability as an organizer.

Edwards is also trying to reach out to the disaffected and to bring them back into the fold, but it's a well known point that his Iowa organization depends on those who know how to caucus, how are experienced pros. His base is THE base, which is why Hillary and Obama have had to find new bases. It's a good and safe bet to talk to this base, because you know they will caucus, and will vote. Where Edwards is demonstrating daring is in his rhetoric, which is pretty much brandishing a flaming sword and declaring class war. And there's a ready audience for this - a lot of middle class Americans share economic insecurity. A lot of people think that Xiao Xiao or Jose or Vinay stole our jobs. Different Democrats play to this at different times, and all of the front runners are guilty of talking about jobs going to China or India. It's a calculated line that brings up fears in the audience of them losing their jobs, and if only we had Daddy Democrat to take care of our economic future, we would be okay.

There's a reason why Obama supports drivers' licenses for undocumented immigrants, with reservations, and Edwards doesn't, with reservations. It's because the people who support Edwards would be turned off by this coming from their economic prophet of populism. And I don't think it's because Edwards is truly anti-immigrant, because we too, are the little guys. It's just that on the other side of populism is xenophobia, and there is a fine pale line. I have seen amazing speeches by Edwards where he reaffirms his belief in immigrants. He tries not to cross this line much but it can't be helped that some of the people who are neo-populists are the Lou Dobbs types. And sometimes I fear that if and when push comes to shove, all the campaigns care more about placating the mostly white voters of Iowa than respecting the fact that one of the last waves of American populism coincided with shutting out all the yellow and brown people. It's something I worry about a lot, and our want our eventual candidate to win, I just don't want them to win at any cost.

A lot of people want to tear down the whole system. I can't blame them, especially on health care. We messed up bad on that one, and Edwards has the best plan for fixing our health care system.

Edwards is playing to the deep-seated resentment of people like me who want to change the DC consultant core. Who want to return the grassroots to the local people in the states. It's another aspect of Dean's 50 State strategy, and it's one that I can also agree with. Obama is running the 50 state strategy by having offices up in Georgia, in California, in Arkansas, in Kansas. He's growing the party that way, through civility and a "vote hope" message.

Edwards is angry and I am angry, and lord knows there is a time and place for angry - you want to move crowds by reminding them of what the problem is, and John Edwards's hard-hitting message does exactly that. He states that the problem is the insurance companies and the corporations and the pig-headed Republicans. And it is everything I believe at a quick gut check level. He reminds me of why I am angry and what we are fighting for, but he maintains a smile doing it. He reminds me what it feels like to be middle class and feel like your family never had enough, and he is fighting for the middle and working class, and god knows we need it.

But then I remember, wait, what about my friend Bobby who works for an insurance company - is he evil? Or my friend's dad Anil who works for a pharmaceutical company but believes that drugmakers charge too much? And I remember that there are no quick fixes.

Does it make me uneasy that Obama is willing to use right-wing talking points or sometimes slips into them? Yes, but sometimes I do too. And I have so many friends who say "illegal immigrants" because it's the framework that FOX, et al, have successfully implemented. Lord knows there are too many dailykos users on what is considered the biggest progressive blog who use the phrase. What we have to do is be vigilant and diligent about creating new language and using it.

And I also remember that I am so tired of being angry. I love angry asian man, and I love my peeps in the movement. Angry is what powers us, what drives us everyday to do the hard things. To face the families and the fears and the doubts about can we win this thing?

But what gets us through is hope. Because without hope, you cannot subsist on anger. Or you definitely can't get enough of the country to sit in your hunger strike with you. Just look at the writer's strike and the balance of anger and hope. They are strong because they are angry, but they also are strong because they have hope and faith that they will win. It hasn't flagged much, and that's to their credit.

And I remember one of my first lessons about organizing, which has been proven true to my face, repeatedly - you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. In my angriest days, I have railed and flailed and fought pyrrhic victories. And I have seen other people walk in with a winning word and a smile and a handshake and it's done. We have won our demands. And I would rather get national healthcare than debate about how exactly to get it. The dangers of widening your coalition is that your central core message can get corrupted, tainted, not passed to the degree that you want. But it'll get passed.

What I've learned about my own political progression is that I started with one issue, and then I came to change my views on most issues. It's how most activists are born, and how we develop. So if Obama can really bring some people into the tent, then they can change their minds about other things. But if they don't feel invited to the tent, if we can't get the discourse off the ground because they are too scared to talk or listen, then we can't get as broad a change as we'd like to see in the population. The other thing that is true about negotiation is that anger as a tactic can be incredibly effective. It just doesn't work the majority of the time - you scare away the other person you are talking to. In my one on ones, when I talk to Republicans, I get a lot farther by sharing our common goals and interests and by listening than when I make blanket statements and overthrow the table. Obama is from the walk softly and carry a big stick camp. Edwards is from the power conceeds nothing without demand point. Ultimately, you need both philosophies and both strategies.

Most importantly, you need to know when to use which one.

So I continue to go back and forth between the two, Obama the bringer of healing, and Edwards the fiery barnstormer. Because it's all here, within myself. But it's just two different styles of organizing. I offer these thoughts as a case study of someone who isn't fully decided, for the perusal of those who are, and those who are still making up their minds. I'm open to discussion and debate. My vote is not for sale, but I am genuinely interested in finding out where you stand and what makes your candidate the best.

Consequently, I'm opening up the comments section for now. If I get too much spam, I might go back.

Thanks for the candidates

I watched the last Democratic debates in Iowa before the primaries and caucuses, and I have to say that overall, I am pretty damn impressed by our candidates. We have an African American man who is the frontrunner, the first woman frontrunner, a credible Latino candidate who could very well be picked for veep, and a really strong field all around. Senators Biden and Dodd are two guys who know their stuff, and Edwards is fighting the good fight for the oppressed. (And yeah, I believe it's possible to remember your roots when you make it big, so no, I don't find it incongruous that he lives in a big house even though he's fighting for the little guy. I do think it provides for easy fodder though.) Our candidates are strong, knowledgeable, and ready to serve, despite the personal, political and family pressures of campaigning. I admire that.

What struck me is the tone of camaraderie that the candidates shared - they blunted attacks and Obama even defended Joe Biden, of the infamous "so clean, so fresh" appellation. Someone on dailykos wrote that it was the classiest moment of the debates, and I think that is accurate. (Btw, I'm also glad to have heard a different Biden - esp. at the end when he said that his New Year's Resolution is to remember where he came from. It was a really heartfelt and touching moment, not scripted, just penitent. So I'm glad to have a new, increased respect for Biden, because it's easy to just categorize people as one sentence uttered out of 6 million in their lifetimes.) So I want to thank our candidates for having the courage, chutzpah, dream, passion, fire, and dedication to undertake the crazy endeavor of running for president. It's a damn hard thing to do.



A lot of the reporters said that this was a boring debate, but actually I found it quite comforting that no one pulled out their big missiles, and I was cheered by the lack of daylight on policy issues. I mean, when you get down into the nitty gritty details, they would implement these reforms differently, but everybody agreed about what has to be changed, for the most part.

I'm pretty impressed that Obama has for the most part not gone negative, when that seems to be Team Hillary's instinctual approach, and I think that she kinda can't help but do that given all the assaults she has weathered. When Obama was languishing for months, and donors and supporters were asking, "Why can't you take a harder-hitting stance? Hit below the belt for once?" Obama for the most part - with the exception of the failed "Hillary Clinton (D-Pakistan)" gambit, has played it clean, and kudos to him for that. It makes me think that as a President, he might not get overly corrupted by power. More than that, it gives me hope.

I think it's true that so many Americans just want to believe, for once, in an elected official. And I think it is easy if you happen to be a progressive with some knowledge of trying to hold some squirming, long-toothed, beady-eyed rat of a politician accountable - well, you soon develop a disgust and distaste for the breed in general.

It's easy to fall into the holier-than-thou trap, to have reservations. Because you've seen so many different faces that all blur into one promising you change, promising you a new start, but all they do is slap a fresh coat of paint on that tired 1984 Chevy, and tell you that she'll run like a beaut. There are, after all, only so many times that you can get suckered before you learn to run far in the opposite direction when you see the huckster coming.

We on the left have such high standards. It's one of our eternal lights and biggest strategic flaws. We dream big and blame the world for not seeing our vision, when there's 66 million of us running around with our own unique perfect. And it's always a future perfect.

So we never see it when it's standing right there in front of us, in our lifetimes.

Me, my perfect would be the antithesis of the modelminority running for president, someone who had worked in the fields or factories, who had really and truly struggled, and appreciates that just because yellow is close to white doesn't mean you get to ignore black and brown. It's someone a lot like Mike Honda with the biography of Hubert Vo. Someone who didn't dream of being a politician their whole lives, but who has lived, and found a way of serving people in other, more meaningful ways.

I'm not sure if I'll ever see an Asian American perfect someone like that run for president - if there was someone like that, they'd probably be too smart to run for national office. But it's nice to hope, and to have someone show you and tell you how to hope again. But at the end of the day, you still have to take that very dangerous leap of faith.

Watching Edwards

I feel a glimmer of what I felt for Howard Dean. I hear common sense values and progressive values, I hear this at 15:12:

"I have a really simple view about this. We are a country of immigrants. I do not want to live in a United States of America made of up first class citizens and second class workers. That is not America. That is not who we are.

So when I am president, we're gonna have comprehensive immigration reform. And we're gonna ensure that every single person living in the United States of America has a completely achievable path to American citizenship, so they don't live in the shadows, so they can become American citizens, so they can be part of America, instead of being treated as second class workers, as second class human beings. There are no second class human beings in the United States of America when I am president."



Damn. Color me impressed. Yes, this is Edwards at his finest, playing to a crowd that is eating out of his hands, but it's the stuff that I've been waiting to hear come out of Obama's mouth given his family's immigration story. It's what I heard from Obama in 2004 and haven't heard as much since.

It's what would make me fall out of my seat if Hillary delivered it like this, without the loopholes and the qualms and the carefully constructed language like a house of cards. I've seen her speak effectively on immigration issues, and with passion and strength, but not always to the benefit of pro-immigrant rights advocates.

And later this: "If you can join the Republican party by signing your name to a card, any worker in America should be able to join a union by doing exactly the same thing. That's democracy in the workplace, that's what we believe in."

His hiring of top labor hands and his work in befriending labor presidents and in working for the average Joe shines through in this speech. So it's not quite Dean's "What I want to know" speech in San Diego with its rousing conclusion of "You have the power!" but it's good enough, for now.

The other thing is that although I am very impressed by this speech, it's not the same as what Dean was trying to do in building an open source movement - the language is not the same - it's still about empowering people, but more nakedly in the service of a political campaign. Perhaps this is because Edwards was trained as a lawyer and mostly lawyers feel empowered to speak on behalf of others whereas organizers work to train people to speak for themselves. Obama was a lawyer, but he was an organizer first. And Hillary studied Alinsky methods, which are present to the watchful observer in her top down style.

More thoughts on this, and other differences between Obama/Edwards/Clinton campaigns and ways of thinking and organizing later.

Edwards favors gay immigration rights

This is an incredibly ballsy and courageous move by a politician. I have just moved this much closer to throwing my support behind John Edwards. This move might hurt him a lot in Iowa, where he needs to win to maintain momentum in the primaries, but it's just such a principled thing that I can't help but admire the guy. Of course, the xenophobic, homophobic parts of the GOP will probably only exponentially increase their hatred and disgust of Edwards and people in this unfortunate situation.

Although it seems like a natural next step in the gay rights movement - expand marriage rights domestically, and then abroad, it is also a controversial thing within both the LGBT and immigrant communities - not all LGBT groups are fully inclusive, and there are definitely homophobic immigrants. I once met a woman who had been persecuted in her home country for being a lesbian. Here, she had multiple black marks against her for being a "multiple minority" but she still loved America because she was more able to be open.

And I know that my friend who has been living abroad for the past 2 years with his lover would welcome this type of immigration policy change.