(This one really needs to stay on the radar. – promoted by JulieWaters)
The Valley News has an editorial alerting its readers to the issues of Vermont police going fishing for wholesale pharmacological records without a warrant.
The NH primary is exciting, but let’s not forget the legislature and the local warrantless searches and seizures that we might actually be able to do something about.
NanuqFC
In a Time of Universal Deceit, Telling the TRUTH Is a Revolutionary Act. — George Orwell
( – promoted by Jack McCullough)
As I read various entries sniping at one another, I think of Susan Powter and Rodney King. “Stop the insanity” and “Can’t we all get along?”
Frankly, I’m not very interested in the minutiae of who’s senior foreign policy expert recommended one slightly different strategy than another. The fact of the matter is that all of these candidates, should they become president will be presented with some very ugly realities upon taking office. After that, most of the campaign rhetoric is out the window. Hopefully, whoever is the eventual nominee can hew to the basic Democratic party line (which they all profess to do) on the big ticket items: budget (which is where most of these fights will be anyway), war, health care, and energy. All four of the remaining candidates are on the same page as to 90% of their goals. I agree that it’s worth haggling over the remaining 10%… the details, and I’m an Edwards man myself, but I’m not interested in trashing any of the others, and I certainly am impressed with, and supportive of ANY of the remaining four candidates. I trust everyone else here is, too, but sometimes the tone of the entries strikes me as a little over the top given the (mostly) shared agenda of Obama, Hill, Edwards, and Richardson.
Bottom line for me after watching the debates on WMUR the other night is this: We Can’t Lose!
That’s both a prediction and an exhortation (i.e., we can’t afford to lose!).
The Republicans spent the evening fixed on fear, terrorism, war, immigration and living in the past on 9/11.
By contrast, the Democrats focused on the pressing issues facing America: health care, education, jobs and the economy, getting our troops out of Iraq, and looking ahead with optimism, strength and hope for the future.
Which platform sounds more appealing to you?
One thing I’ve noticed is that the various camps are digging hard into their positions, which is only natural and perfectly understandable given the heated battle for the primary elections. After the primaries, however, we all have to forgive and forget and get behind whoever the eventual nominee. The debate last night reinforced for me the sense that whoever gets the nomination is going to be a VAST improvement over the current Administration and any of the candidates the GOP has to offer.
Here’s my quick take on the Democratic debate:
Obama was once again impressive: thoughtful, mature… presidential. His message of change may well be the most positive and inspiring of all the candidates. He makes a good frontrunner.
Hillary’s performance came off as very human, funny, and smart. It showed she is well-positioned to lead. Despite what some folks say (they worry about her high personal “negatives”), she would make a great president and I firmly believe she can win if she gets the nomination.
John Edwards is the most fired up of the bunch. He has a point: no matter how good your plans, if the big corporations are calling the shots in Washington then not much is going to get done. Not sure if that message is enough to bring him the nomination, but it is making a difference on the trail and it resonates with voters who know that despite our best efforts health care reform has been stymied in this country by those interests since Hillary tried to get universal care way back in 1993.
Bill Richardson probably has the best resume of them all. He’s smart and likeable but lacks the charisma of the other three; also he’s clearly frustrated that “experience” may not mean as much to voters given his polling numbers.
Best lines of the night:
Hillary, after being asked by moderator Charlie Gibson on why her personal negatives are so high… why is it that people don’t seem to like you? She replied: “Now you’ve hurt my feelings.” Which got a big laugh. “But I’ll try to carry on.” More laughs. Then Obama chimed in: “You’re likeable enough, Hillary.”
Richardson on mistakes made during the debates and if he would correct any of them. He immediately said: “In the first debate I was asked who my favorite Supreme Court Justice was… I asked ‘dead or alive’ (big laugh). So, I ended up saying Whizzer White because I figured he must be good if he was appointed by Kennedy. Of course, later I learned that he was against Roe v. Wade, against civil rights… so, yeah, in hindsight that wasn’t a very good answer.” The place broke up. Points for honesty and humility.
Edwards on the same question: “Well, I’ve already got this one figured out… in an earlier debate I teased Hillary about the jacket she wore to the debate. I’ll never do that again… by the way, Hillary, you look very nice tonight.” Again, the place broke up, and points to Edwards for making fun of his earlier gaffe.
( – promoted by odum)
As regular readers of GMD are aware, I am a solid, money-contributing supporter for the Bill Richardson campaign.
Richardson’s star has yet to rise. More below the fold.
My reasons why I like him, and a thought about Super Tuesday below the fold.
I consider his experience in foreign policy to be paramount to America’s success in recovering our lost international relations.
I consider his goal for a 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 to be realistic. I also look to his work in creating a green energy economy in New Mexico during his tenure as governor.
I consider his ability to revitalize our economy for middle class workers to be the most progressive and forward thinking of any candidate.
Richardson is 4-time Nobel Prize nominee. He is a natural leader and offers a humanitarian views on social issues — including gay and lesbian rights, despite his misuse of the word “choice” in August.
The only negative responses offered on this blog are in respect to his gaffes, which have frankly been reported in a disproportional manner compared to the gaffes of the top tier candidates.
On the street in the Northeast people still don’t know a lot about Richardson.
But in Southern and Western states, he is known quite well.
On Super Tuesday the diverse states of the South and West will vote. Bill Richardson appeals to moderate independents as well as Democrats. In the West and South, we should wait and watch before we rule out the creative, economically inclined, and internationally savvy candidate in Bill Richardson.
Nate Freeman
Northfield, VT
Since tomorrow’s the big New Hampshire primary (and we have readers in New Hampshire, so this is the closest any of us are going to get to actually having an effect on the vote, short of pounding the pavement or working a phone bank), I’d like to extend an invitation.
I see that Julie has posted a candidate diary, and I’d like to as well, but I want to be fair, given that the GMD front page crowd seems to overwhelmingly lean (if not outright favor) John Edwards. For today, if you write a candidate diary for the sidebar, I’ll front page it as soon as I can (lunchtime, or during breaks if I’m not onsite at work).
This is not a wide open invitation – they need to be actual diaries, for one. Not just two sentences of “I want Hillary! Yea, Hillary!” I wanna see some prose, goldurnit.
Also – and I don’t see this happening, but just in case – this aint the time to contact HQ and get 40 new readers signed up to put a whole string of redundant diaries up and filibuster the site for others (“But odum said he’d post ’em! What a lying phony!”), but I think it’d be great to see what people have to say. Between now and when the polls close, I expect 1000 unique visitors to stop by GMD, and a couple hundred of those could well have voting rights tomorrow. It’s not enough to throw an election one way or the other, but it’s certainly a way to support your favorite pick.
Let ’em rip.
We took time to get over to Keene, NH, today to see John speak again. We got there over an hour early and a crowd had already formed outside the venue. By the time the event had started, the room was in overflow and the upper balcony had been opened. I had a good seat, so I got to catch a lot of what was going on, for both discussion and photographs.
You can see the full image set of the event here, and after the fold, I’ll give a brief summary, including some photos.
So here’s the thing:
For those of you who don’t know, Granny D. is the woman who, in her 90’s, walked across the country to support campaign finance reform. She’s from New Hampshire and well-loved here.
Let me be perfectly clear about this: Granny D. is a big deal in New Hampshire, at least among progressives. She ran a $20,000 campaign against Judd Greg a few years back and managed to get 37% of the vote with virtually no money. She’s a hero in Southern NH especially. When she entered the room, the room erupted with applause. Then, when she endorsed John later in the event, she got a standing ovation. Here she is doing her endorsement:
Senator Edwards explained how the endorsement came to be. He was at an event and she just walked up to him and said “I’m going to endorse you.”
I love New England.
Edwards gave a great speech and interspersed it with special guests. The best of those guests, aside from Granny D., was the mother of Nataline Sarkisyan. Nataline, as you may know, died recently due to neglect, brought on in large part by her insurance company.
Here’s her, speaking on behalf of Edwards:
There’s more about this specific woman’s history over at this excellent diary, outlining some of Clinton’s attacks on Edwards over this, so I won’t focus on them here. I’m just going to say this: if you get the chance to see Edwards in person, especially from up close, do it.
This is a man who’s very committed to what he believes and you can see it in his eyes and in how he talks about it. He doesn’t just give simplistic or simple answers to the people who question him. His answers are in depth and complicated, without being inaccessible:
Now, the thing is, there’s no reason for you to believe me on this. My impressions aren’t yours and my interpretation of human expressions are meaningless, as they should be. Vague “you can see it in his eyes” statements don’t, and shouldn’t mean anything to you, especially not coming from me.
But here’s the deal: this man is incredible to see talking and interacting with these families. He brought in people who had suffered tragic circumstances who talked about their experience with him and how much help he’d been. He brought in his won experiences as well. He’s an incredible speaker, and he’s bristling with energy, even after the incredible schedule he’s been on as of late.
I don’t know what’s going to happen on Tuesday. I think Obama’s wowed a lot of people and is a strong candidate. But there’s something about his energy post-debate that makes me think that he’s going to do better than people expect. It’s hard to tell where it will all go. Obama’s clearly got a strong advantage at this point but Edwards beat Clinton in Iowa and I am convinced he’ll do so again two nights from now. If this turns into a two-person race, it’s anyone’s guess as to what will happen with it.
In the meantime, I’m really glad I saw this speech today, and amazed that he managed to get an endorsement from Granny D., even if he didn’t actively go seeking it out.
An anecdote from yesterday’s Edwards event covered by Julie – not a candidate promotional diary, I promise…
If you read Julie’s account, you already know I was among the crowd of Vermonters that went door knocking for John Edwards yesterday in New Hampshire (and what an interesting combination of political types showed up – Ben Cohen, Senate Majority Leader John Campbell, Sen. Alice Nitka, Vermont State Emploees Union head Ed Stanak, former Progressive Burlington City Councilperson Phil Fiermonte – oh for a camera for those times when odd combinations were standing together!).
Among the stars in attendance was GMD front pager Caoimhin Laochdha, and at the end of the day, it’s a damn good thing he was.
After the door knocking, we met up for a rally with Senator Edwards at the Hanover Lebanon High School. I’d been partnered up with former State Senator Matt Dunne, who is an Edwards organizational point person, and as such I got to hear the troubles first hand when I arrived. The rally had been set up by a volunteer who also worked at the school, and apparently there was some conflict, as the gym (where the rally was planned) was in use for a basketball practice. So, volunteers were trying to shift it into the cafeteria, which didn’t have enough romm for everyone, leaving the vast majority of people in the hall.
This is when the ugliness reared its head. Somebody called the fire marshall in an attempt to shut down the gathering. One of the coordinators on site had been a Kerry staffer four years ago and confirmed (first hand? Who knows…) that this was indeed an established technique from the dirty trick playbook.
Since the earliest arrivers at the event included many folks sporting “Hillary” and “Obama” stickers (a note here: I could only get first-hand confirmation of the Hillary stickers), the assumption was that this was exactly what had happened. Don’t know who, from what camp – certainly wouldn’t suggest the order came from campaign staff, but it seemed clear that’s what had happened (no doubt it was a little over-eager, heat-of-the-moment tackiness rather than part of any master plan – at least that’s what I choose to believe).
So there was trouble. The fire department (who confirmed they’d been called from someone there) was on the scene, actively barring people from entering – including members of the national press corps. People inside were not budging to allow for the press to enter (including, reportedly, some of those sporting other campaigns’ stickers). And nobody seemed to be in charge.
…so GMD front pager Caoimhin Laochdha stepped up to the plate…
With behind-the scenes disarray – and some volunteers even beginning to argue with fire fighters, the gym opened back up and became available. Organizers first impulses were to try and move the whole thing back into that room, which would have caused even more chaos (and at this point, supporters are really starting to wonder what’s going on).
Caoimhin took charge, rightly figuring that things needed to happen immediately. He called for two groups – a smaller one in the cafeteria, and the significant overflow in the gym (which all but filled it up), and had Edwards go to both groups – first the overflow, thanking them for being there and checking in with them briefly before going back to the cafeteria to give his speech, which could be played simultaneously in the gym through the schools sound system.
To make it work, Caoimhin took the stage and made a clear, stern appeal that 40 or so people in the cafeteria would need to join the rest of us in the overflow crowd in the gym. He applieda little persuasion, and explained that the press really needed to be there to further the candidacy they were there to support. Enough acquiesced, and the make-it-up-as-you-go-along event went swimmingly. Heck, with the whole basketball-thing (see Julie’s pics), it was probably even better and more fun than it woulda been.
And the crowd? They never knew that anything more than some minor confusion had slowed things up a bit. There was no way to tell that a major clusterf*ck had been averted, thanks to Caoimhin…
Who says bloggers aren’t good fer nuthin, huh?
It's probably too early for this, but I do think it's something worth thinking about. Among the leading candidates, I think the majority of us around here probably favor Edwards. Still, especially if Obama is able to win on Tuesday (and espceially if, as seems quite likely Edwards is a poor third), his chances are looking worse and Obama's are looking really good.
So if it's Obama, what do we think about that?
I believe strongly that we have to do whatever it takes to defeat the Republican nominee, even if our nominee is Hillary Clinton. It's important for a lot of reasons, including the fact that economic royalism will continue under any conceivable Republican nominee, the fact that any Republican president will appoint clones of Scalia, Roberts, and Alito to the Supreme Court, and that any Republican president will be in favor of staying in Iraq, essentially forever.
Those facts are not true of any of the Democratic candidates.
Here's a link to a diavlog about the Democratic race that makes the point that Obama will absolutely be better than Clinton, and will be able to accomplish some important things we want (like universal health care) better than any real alternative. You don't have to agree with everything in it, but it's worth a listen.
In today's leading WaPo op-ed, 85 year-old George McGovern makes a belated but still compelling case for an impeachment process to begin saying:
“As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.”
How do you like the apples?
I myself didn't enter the impeachment debate until after 140 or so Vermonters rec'd a “don't bother us” backhand from S&S in Montpelier, so like McGovern, I can only claim to be belated interested in the subject myself. But even at this late stagein the Bush Administration, with an outcome to the “Wait for 2008” strategy to complete it's course, there is a firm, compelling argument to be made that impeachment is a necessary process, not necessarily for a timely outcome, but to send a strong message both domestically and internationally that the American people and the American Congress uphold the rule of law here in the United States and in our international policies.
And no matter what anyone thinkd about impeachment, it's still not too late to confirm the potential of legal integritiy as a mandatory process as versus a preconcieved judgement.
Nothing below the fold.
This is primarily a photo blog: a group of Vermonters (including a not paltry contingent from Vermont’s Green Mountain Daily) showed up in Lebanon, New Hampshire this morning to help out with the canvassing. Later, we got to see John Edwards speak, and had a real treat shortly after.
It was a day much colder than expected, and canvassing was fun. Everyone was incredibly polite to one another. We crossed a few paths with an Obama canvasser and wished each other good luck. Everyone we spoke to while canvassing was polite as well, and the common theme, even for people who weren’t supporting Edwards was how nice it was to have a good set of choices this time around.
After the fold, I’ll post about the speakers we had at the pre-canvassing as well as the treat we got with seeing Edwards, but first, probably one of the best portrait shots I’ve ever taken:
The whole photoset of photos from today can be seen here. I’m just posting a select few for the blog itself.
First, David Zucker, who was coordinating the volunteers in Lebanon:
People who do this sort of work are often overworked and overtired, but he was great.
After David, we got a cool speech from Matt Dunne, who ran for Lt. Governor in Vermont last time around and is an awesome progressive:
After Matt, we got Kevin Leahy, which was a treat:
Then, we got the fairly manic Ben Cohen (from Ben & Jerry’s fame):
The idea was simple after this: we canvass for a bit and then we had reserved seats in the auditorium in front.
Here’s what ended up happening though: the Fire Marshal shut us, and a large number of other Edwards supporters, out of the auditorium. So this was really disheartening; we had expected to have reserved seats, but no such luck. They were going to have us stand outside and meet with Edwards briefly but no one seemed to like that plan. Then they figured out that we could have an overflow room, and that as a thank you, we’d get to see Edwards speak briefly in the overflow room. They brought us in, we waited a bit, and then the candidate appeared, walking into the center of this gymnasium and standing on a chair to talk to us:
He spoke briefly, off the cuff, thanked everyone for coming and apologized for the overflow room, and then left again. I positioned myself to get the picture up top on his way out– came out far better than I expected. We were all milling about, getting ready to head out, thinking it wasn’t worth sticking around just to hear his speech pumped in through speakers.
Then something really surprising happened. He came running back into the room, without his jacket, and someone tossed him a basketball:
This was a real treat. We got to watch a presidential candidate just hang out before his speech, and have some fun, the afternoon before probably the most important debate of his political career:
He didn’t seem to mind that he’d missed a few baskets, and he was as relaxed as I’d ever seen him.
So really, that’s it. We headed back to quiet Vermont and over the next few days we’ll be doing more campaigning, canvassing, etc. This was a real treat. I’ve worked for campaigns before but never got to see the candidate from this close.
I’m glad we did it and it was really fun, once you got over the bitter freezing (“Can I still feel my fingers? No, I can’t!) cold. Yikes. Oh well. All for a good cause.
Anyway, one last photo, of three of our bloggers. John Odum is in the middle. The one to the right of John is, I think, bvt and the one to his left is greenvermonster.
