Reaction from Davenport -- guess who was there?
I don't want to post my entire (and a tad incoherent) late-night reaction from the Davenport caucus here, but if you're interested, it's posted at www.djwinfo.blogspot.com
But guess who was also in Davenport working on the Obama campaign?
State Senator Michael Frerichs and .... former State Senator George Shadid!
Plus, State Representative Mike Boland was helping run one of the Davenport caucuses with his parliamentarian knowledge (he's originally from Iowa).
That's an on-topic post for Illinoize, right?
4 comments:
I'm getting tired of the "Does Iowa Really Matter?" question/spin. Hillary Clinton wouldn't have spent $10 million there if it didn't matter.
I think the much more interesting question from a campaign perspective isn't "Does Iowa Matter?", but why did Obama fair so much better than Howard Dean did in Iowa?
Has the electorate changed that much, or did Obama just run a much better campaign?
I like Barack Obama. Sometimes I have a habit of getting more suspicious of people the better they do.
One issue I have as an Illinoisan (is that the word?) is that Barack was elected in 2004 and in less than 2 years in as Senator he is running for President. What has Barack Obama really done in the Senate? Has he missed votes?
I keep on hearing that he is not an insider and he is not politics as usual and reform etc.
But his money is bundled from rich power players with interests in various legislation and government action (like the Pritzkers with interests in China) and lots of lawyers and law firms. This money is not just spontaneous donors with no vested interest or interested in reform. Now, this is most politicians but that is the point that Barack Obama is indeed a politician. While in the State Senate in Illinois he never criticized than Senate minority leader and subsequently Majority leader Emil Jones and took (and still takes) money from big industry that at least arguably from Illinois from gas to electricity there have been issues.
I can’t really understand the perception as Barack Obama being an outsider. Ron Paul certainly is an outsider. Dennis Kucinich is an outsider kind of of. Maybe even Huckabee. Obama is really not taking any radical positions or anything against the status qou. His speeches tend to be good stump speeches, and like Reagan he seems to give off the aura of hope. Barack Obama does seem positive certainly. However, he has plenty of ties to big business, rich people that some might consider oligarchs, PACs, lobbyists, lawyers, industry, utilities etc–not that there is anything wrong with this per se but just not that he is an outsider or some big reformer. His positions are fairly mainstream liberal positions.
Barack Obama’s story is interesting and he is certainly an attractive candidate but it is not as compelling as others. Certainly Barack Obama is an attractive man with a beautiful wife and family. Being biracial from a white mother and a black father is popular and even powerful as a symbol today. While he is not the first African American candidate (Shirley Chisolm, Jesse Jackson, Alan Keyes, Al Sharpton) to run for President he is the more popular candidate in the media and the polls and the most or at least more probable candidate. John McCain has a more compelling story being a POW in the Hanoi Hilton and a serious military record. Bill Richardson has negotiated some real high level international deals. Barack Obama has no military record or experience. Rudy Guliani has real legal experience and not some legal briefs for some Tony Rezko real estate deals for low income housing or 1 federal appearance or 4 or 4 known cases including major mafia prosecutions.
Edwards is a major lawyer on the plaintiffs side and has legal experience that dwarfs Obama.
Mitt Romney has major business experience not just some insider real estate deals with Tony Rezko.
However, the story in the Sun Times by Abdon Pallasch on his legal experience demonstrated that he had none. It was not stong and silent but minimal compared to any major lawyer in Chicago or even to Sen Edwards certainly.
He is certainly intelligent with a law degree from Harvard but a Harvard or other Ivy League degree is common in the US Senate. His initial opponent in the 2004 general Jack Ryan had an MBA and a law degree from Harvard and had real experience in the financial industry becoming a partner at Goldman Sachs before he was 40 being involved in major deals that affected the economy. There have been some good exposes about Barack Obama’s community organizing also. He worked for the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) run by Danny Solis (not exactly a paragon of true community organizing nor reform being aligned with major utilities and Mayor Daley) There are conflicting reports about what he did and took credit for on community campaigns. Like his legal resume, his community organizing resume is light. The true positive aspect of Barack Obama has always been hope and potential and not anything he has actually done. Besides being a State Senator, he really has no major life experience or significant accomplishment, certainly not in the law or community organizing.
His outsider and reform rhetoric is further diminished by his ability to raise funds and having key backers from the beginning of his political career and being picked and blessed very early on in by money players and people like Tony Rezko. Obama might not have done anything illegal with Rezko but Obama certainly knew that Rezko was a political operator and was not involved in politics for public policy. The real estate deals again may not be illegal but Obama was involved in them even after the allegations of criminal behavior had been revealed and certainly had been rumored for years. Rezko was also involved in Iraq, with Sultans and missing government officials and failed pipe lines (Rezko being an immigrant from Syria) The Rezko issue goes beyond the current criminal allegations and what else Barack Obama did for Rezko or what he knew about vis a vis his international business.
Barack Obama gives one of the best stump speeches since Reagan. However, he is not a great debator (even Rich Miller pointed this out by re-posting years later the Alan Keyes debates) and is not that good off the cuff.
Obama’s legislative record in the State Senate and the US Senate will be scrutinized and maybe people will not care as many people who did not ideologically agree with Reagan still voted for him. Some so called immigrants rights groups and Hispanics are upset about his support for a wall along the Mexican border. Some abortion groups think he voted against a ban on partial birth abortion. Some veterans are upset he never criticized Durbin over his comments about US soldiers comparing them to worse atrocities and Durbin is ever present with Obama. The entirety of Illinois corruption will be layed to blame at Obama’s feet sometimes fairly but most times not fairly. There has no real discussion on issues and votes of Barack Obama focusing more on the visceral and perceptual aspects of his candidacy.
The media has given Barack Obama a pass up to now and much of the Obamamania nationwide was driven by uncritical front page news stories on Time etc. Obama has yet to be tested by critical news analysis. Here in Chicago Jennifer Hunter fawns over Obama in almost ridiculous quasi journalistic promotion.
It is not unbelievable to say there is some style over substance and cult of personality going on here. I understand what we hope Barack Obama can do (it is like looking into the mirror), but I still don’t know what Barack Obama has done.
I heard Savage say last night
that Barak sent out 50,000
mailers, some to Illinoisans
encouraging them to go to Iowa
to vote in their primary, and
that this is permissable.
A loan is an issue of Government paper which entails an obligation to pay interest amounting to a percentage of the total sum of the borrowed money. If a loan is at 5%, then in 20 years the Government would have unnecessarily paid out a sum equal to that of the loan in order to cover the percentage. In 40 years it will have paid twice; and in 60 thrice that amount, but the loan will still remain as an unpaid debt.
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