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Herbert & Rothschild on Obama
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Ed Pearl - Jan 5, 2008
The New York Times - Jan 5, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/opinion/05herbert.html
The Obama Phenomenon
By BOB HERBERT
Manchester, N.H.
The historians can put aside their reference material. This is new.
America
has never seen anything like the Barack Obama phenomenon.
I was surprised all day Thursday, before the results of the Iowa caucuses
were in, by the apparent serenity of the Obama forces here in New
Hamp****re.
The stakes were enormous, but the campaign staff members and volunteers
seemed as cool as the candidate.
The students, veterans, middle-aged moms, retirees and others working
steadily to make Barack Obama president seemed to accept as fact that the
country is ready for profound change and that their job is to help make it
happen.
"We've been busy knocking on doors, making phone calls, inputting data and
basically just spreading hope," said Kathryn Teague, a 19-year-old who has
taken a year off from Keene State College to work in the campaign.
There is no longer any doubt that the Obama phenomenon is real. Mr.
Obama's
message of hope, healing and change, discounted as fanciful and nave by
skeptics, drew Iowans into the frigid night air by the tens of thousands
on
Thursday to stand with a man who is not just running for president, but
trying to build a new type of political movement.
By midnight, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd had been chased from the race; John
Edwards was all but literally on his knees; and the Clintons were trying,
for the umpteenth time, to figure out how to remake themselves as the
comeback kids.
Shake hands with tomorrow. It's here.
Senator Obama's victory speech was a concise oratorical gem. No candidate
in
either party can move an audience like he can. He characterized his
stunning
victory as an affirmation of "the most American of ideas - that in the
face
of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it."
Mr. Obama has shown, in one appearance after another, a capacity to make
people feel good about their country again. His sup****ters want
desperately
to turn the page on the bitter politics and serial disasters of the past
20
years. That they have gravitated to a black candidate to carry out this
task
is - to use a term I heard for the first time this week - monumentous.
The Clintons, especially, have seemed baffled by the winds of change. They
mounted a peculiar argument against Senator Obama, acknowledging that
voters
wanted change but insisting that you can't achieve change by doing things
differently. Senator Hillary Clinton has had a devil of a time trying to
cope with the demand for change while shouldering the legacy of an
administration that defined the 1990s.
Barack Obama has none of that baggage.
But for all the talk of change, it's just one of the factors driving the
Obama phenomenon. The simple truth is that hardly anyone - in politics, in
the news media or anywhere else - realized what an extraordinary candidate
Senator Obama would turn out to be.
He's smart, hard-working, charismatic, good-looking and a whiz at
fund-raising.
He has an incandescent smile, but it's not frozen in place. He seems
authentic. When he laughs, you have the feeling it's because something is
funny.
People are lining up to believe in him. He has the easy demeanor (in a
long,
lanky frame) of someone who's comfortable with himself. Even when he fires
up a crowd, he doesn't get too hot. He has the cadences that remind you of
King but the cool that reminds you of Kennedy - John, not Robert.
If the Clintons are going to stop Mr. Obama, they need to do it now. If he
wins the New Hamp****re primary Tuesday, the news media will go nuts and he
will head toward the Jan. 19 caucuses in Nevada and the Jan. 26 primary in
South Carolina (where half the voters are African-American) with
incredible
momentum.
I expect that African-Americans, under those circumstance, would view his
campaign with almost religious fervor. All those questions about whether
he's
black enough would be history. Mr. Obama would be perceived by many as
within striking distance of the presidency, and there will be very few
blacks in favor of stopping that train.
However this election turns out, Mr. Obama can be credited with a great
achievement. He has drawn tons of people, and especially young people,
into
the political process. More than anyone else, he has re-energized that
process and put some of the fun back into politics. And he's done it by
appealing openly and consistently to the best, rather than the worst, in
us.
[VCorrection: Sometimes your fingers dance too quickly over the
keyboard. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on April 4,
1968, not April 3, as I wrote earlier this week.]
***
The Progressive - Jan 4, 2008
http://www.progressive.org/mag_wx010408
Obama's Day in Iowa
By Matthew Rothschild
Obama owned all the excitement, even before the tallies.
I was in Dubuque, Iowa, with my 18-year-old daughter,
Katherine, an Obama sup****ter.
We arrived at 3:30 in the afternoon, and proceeded to
the local headquarters of Obama, Edwards, and Clinton.
A couple dozen volunteers, young and old, staffed the
phones at Obama's. Of all three, it was the only one
that had a diverse staff. A young black man from
Milwaukee greeted us. A middle-aged black woman from
Chicago sketched pictures at a table. A Native American
man from Arizona kept urging people to shut the sticking
door when they entered. The white press person told me
everything was off the record. But then he pointed me to
Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, who was
visiting the office with her husband, Robert Creamer,
the author of "Listen to Your Mother, Stand Up Straight:
How Progressives Can Win."
"Barack is the one, and the only one, who is right for
this time," she said. "He really can be a uniter, not
just across race lines. He can bring Republicans,
progressives, and Independents together to really move
an agenda to realign us. He will be our first 21st
century President. He will change the narrative of the
United States around the world and make it possible to
even hope for a peaceful century."
I asked her whether she wasn't tugged in the direction
of Hillary Clinton.
"As someone who always sup****ts women candidates, of
course I've thought about that," she says. "But Barack
is the one who can actually make progressive change
happen and a women's agenda happen."
We then went to Edwards's headquarters just two blocks
away in downtown Dubuque. The sign on the door said:
"Not Paid for by PACS or Wa****ngton Lobbyist Money EVER.
"Only one candidate has never taken a dime from PACs or
Wa****ngton lobbyists."
About ten people, all white, were working the phones
under signs that said, "Call Like a Champion Today." The
"door knock goal" was 2,900, and they had reached 2,000.
The "phone call goal" was 6,544, and they had reached
5,000.
"Edwards will keep fighting for the middle class,
economic justice, and cor****ate power," said Peter
Rickman, the volunteer state organizer. "This is bigger
than one man."
Three miles away, at Clinton headquarters in a little
strip mall, the sign on the door read: "Hillary-Turn Up
the Heat." Inside the signs stressed, "Strength and
Leader****p" and "Give 'em Hill," and "Help Make
History." Of the dozen people there, all white and
mostly women, not many were working the phones.
Penni Secore came to Iowa from AFSCME in Milwaukee.
"We've chosen Hillary because she's always had a
commitment to working for union people," she says,
adding that "Hillary was overwhelmingly sup****ted by the
member****p."
Was Hillary going to win Iowa?
"Of course, by a point or two," Secore said.
It didn't look that way the minute we got to Carnegie-
Stout Public Library as the caucus in Precinct 19 was
just getting going. Four years ago, this caucus had 77
voters. This year, there were 219, with more than 50
first-timers. Most of these were for Obama, and many of
them were young.
"It warms my heart," said Kaye Hess, the Obama precinct
captain. "It's so unusual to see young kids here. I've
never seen this before, and I've been in politics 5,000
years."
"He's the change everyone's looking for," said Nick
Saenz, a white 22 year old.
Sheree Omoyi, a black 34 year old, was there for Obama
because he had met her 11-year-old son at Lincoln
Elementary School. She said he told her: "I like him!
Mom, you've got to sup****t Obama."
Carol Dunlap, a white 49 year old, was also there as a
first-timer for Obama: "I like what he has to say and
how he says it. He seems honest. And he doesn't seem
like a know-it-all like other people."
Ruby Sutton, a 70-year-old African American woman was
there with her daughter Kathy, 48. "He'll make some
changes we need," Sutton said. "I'm a social worker, and
I see a lot of needs. He's committed, and he's not
afraid."
Dr. John Whalen, 60, a white pathologist, said he liked
Obama because he was "looking for a new beginning. I
still have idealism at 60," he said.
Phillip Wilson, a 36-year-old African American,
applauded Obama's stance on the Iraq War. "When it was
almost unpatriotic to oppose the war in Iraq, he stood
up," Wilson said. "A lot of people didn't have the
heart. He's got a different type of leader****p."
Many of the Clinton sup****ters, overwhelmingly white,
wanted an old type of leader****p-Bill's.
Barb Fisher, 70, cited Hillary's experience "and her
husband's experience."
Pam Thorpe, 45, mentioned Hillary's stances on
education, the environment, and health care. "I'm a
midwife," she says. But she, too, cited Hillary's
husband. "If she has Bill as a backup, that's an asset."
Cathy Morley, 41, said, "Quite honestly, I sup****t her
because she's a woman. And she's got Bill behind her,
and his know-how there."
Other Clinton sup****ters stressed the woman factor.
"Go women," said Katie Morley, Cathy's daughter, 23.
"Women get things done," said Sandi Juergens, 65. It was
her first caucus.
Marcos Rubinstein, 56, is Dennis Kucinich's statewide
Iowa coordinator. "We put our main efforts in New
Hamp****re," he says, bemoaning the candidate's lack of
financial resources.
Carla Osborne, 60, wore a Kucinich button. "He's the
only one who speaks from the heart. He doesn't pull any
punches, and I like everything he says." Asked who she
would sup****t if Kucinich did not reach the 15%
threshold needed in the caucus, she said: "I can't think
of anyone else. I came in here for Kucinich and I'm
going to stay with Kucinich."
The initial tally was Obama 89, Clinton 46, Biden and
Edwards 18, Richardson 9, Dodd 7, Kucinich 6.
Each campaign had one representative address the crowd.
The Edwards man stressed that he "speaks best for middle
America. He's been a champion for us. He's a genuine
nice guy, and he will not accept any lobbyist money."
Clinton's rep said she was "the number one choice in
education and health care, and she has a relation****p
with over 100 world leaders. On Day One, we'll be
respected, and she will stand up for us every single
day."
But the most moving speech was by the young white man
who stood up for Obama.
"Over the last six years, we've seen our country ****ft
to places that are dangerous and scary and against what
we stand for," he said. "Obama has the judgment to move
the country forward, to ****ft our perspective and the
perspective the world has of us. Just look at his name:
Barack Hussein Obama."
The final tally was Obama 100, Clinton 49, Edwards 34,
Biden 33.
Just before we left, I saw Carla Osborne, the staunch
Kucinich sup****ter. She, too, ended up voting for Obama.
*
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