tales of copper city

This says it all

This post by Theda Skocpol about Obama's need to fight back says it all. 

Pick Hillary?

Bill Curry makes a powerful case for picking Hillary as veep here.  I think the lack of experience theme of McCain's campaign is getting some traction and it might just make this a far closer election than it needs to be.  Hillary being on the ticket would help stop that, cold.

On the other hand my brother Steve, who's an Obama supporter who has never voted for a Democrat in his life, thinks it's a bad idea.

He admits it will strengthen the ticket for November but  it will also turn off those Republicans and Independents like him who see Obama as something entirely new, and that's not Hillary.

Fight, don't explain

E.J. Dionne, a writer and columnist that I usually admire, perfectly illustrates why and how liberals and Obama have a very hard time dealing with the attack politics of modern-day Republicanism.

Dionne has a column explaining how race got into the campaign here.

Dionne's column is yet another tired and deeply misleading explanation of how working class, white voters swung to the Republican Party largely because the welfare liberalism of the Great Society violated their "work ethic."

Resisting the temptations of celebrity

Like most, I am disgusted with the recent attacks on Senator Obama by the McCain camp.

But, really, didn't we know this would be coming?

It is tempting to counter every attack, to knock down every lie.

However, with all criticism we must always ask if there a kernel of truth, if there is something we need to hear. 

What the Republicans are pointing to is the celebrity surrounding Obama and the suspicion that he has somehow come to believe it of himself, to see himself as a celebrity leader instead of a leader working on behalf of ordinary Americans.

We know of course that McCain can't work on behalf of ordinary Americans.

His commitment to the war and the war machine, to the military state, and to obscene tax cuts for the rich, means that his base will always be far, far away from Main Street.

There's no money left for Main Street when you are busy feeding the endless appetites of wealthy and corporate America and the Pentagon war machinery.

But Obama can work for ordinary people. That's his agenda, his reason for running.

But constantly trying to combat every slur on one's character and persona is succumbing to the temptations of celebrity to feed on itself, to defend itself endlessly.

Obama should resist the celebrity spotlight and get on Main Street and turn every attack McCain makes into an opportunity to point out the simple, unarguable truth: McCain is McSame, the same exhausted Republican Party of George Bush.

McCain is George Bush all over again.