Barack Obama Supoprters in Brooklyn

brooklyndula

There's a new group formed for people supporting Senator Barack Obama for president--if you are interested the first meeting is next week. Check it out here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/4jg92 There are lots of other neighborhoods involved as well. http://www.brooklynforbarack.com
The Obamathon is coming May 12th as well. See you in Battery Park!

rbg

Watch CBS Evening News on Friday night to see a great Barack Obama story!

brooklyndula

RBG, Were you at Sputnik last night?

brooklyndula

Subject: Cherry Blossoms for Barack

PS: Some Brookln for Barack volunteers are having a voter registration drive and info table set up by the Cherry Blossom Festival--if you are near there & curious, stop by and say hello!

izisharp

Great to see folks in the neighborhood getting behind a candidate and getting involved so soon. Personally I'm torn between Obama and Edwards -- Obama's got that magnetism and aura that make him seem like a natural leader, and Edwards has very specific, progressive ideas that are so important right now. And hell, Richardson, Biden, and Clinton are probably more 'qualified' to lead than both of 'em, so I still may get behind them (although Hillary's just never won me over). I'm sure all 5 of the aforementioned will do a great deal to regain support abroad the moment they're inaugurated.

doctorj

According to the Intrade, futures contracts, which is perhaps the most reliable way to predict these things, as of right now,

ContractBidAskLastVolChge
2008DEM.NOM.CLINTON 47.047.948.01638640
2008DEM.NOM.OBAMA 30.430.931.0128075-1.4
2008DEM.NOM.GORE 11.311.411.3175231+0.0
2008DEM.NOM.EDWARDS 7.27.47.475226-0.2
2008DEM.NOM.RICHRDSN 2.52.62.652564-0.1

Clinton still the strong favorite; Obama is in with a real chance, whereas Edwards is behind Gore, who isn't even running.

On the other side, Giuliani is out in front.

wtgirl

I want to get behind Obama but I find two things troubling:
Can an Obama supporter explain to me what Obama was doing backing the Terry Schiavo debacle? I know he regrets it now but that mess was so obviously politicized by the right and what exactly did he do?
Why did he support the bankruptcy bill? That is one of the WORST bills passed for middle class people. Most people who claim bankruptcy have had a string of bad luck and it is usually a medical problem after a lay off that causes their finances to spiral. Could happen to most of us really.

They are all political of course but I wonder is he an opportunist like Clinton and does that matter?

Edwards, Obama and CLinton are all extremely intelligent and well versed but right now, I like Edwards because he is a little more left of center. But I am open to be convinced that Obama is the one.

piratesofwaverly

Subject: speaking of bad votes....

....at least Obama isn't tainted by having authorized the greatest foreign policy blunder in our history, something neither Clinton nor Edwards can say.

doctorj

At least you guys have primaries, where lots of people can vote. In most democratic countries, candidates are chosen by hacks from hacks in a faceless party machine.

nkotsonis

Just found out that Obama is speaking friday at the Harvard Club in Manhattan from 4-5:30.

sweet tea

WTGirl wrote:
Why did he support the bankruptcy bill?

wait, did he? according to this roll call, he voted against it. but it there another vote that i am missing?

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00044

oiseau

Obama will never win. Hillary will never win. I hope Guiliani will never win. McCain will never win.

livetotravel

What's up with this "young" presidential candidate going all control-freak about a volunteers Obama MySpace page? Christ - isn't that VERY old school thinking? That news really turned me off. I'm sticking with Edwards. And just for the record, I HATE HIL!

apollonia666

Livetotravel wrote: What's up with this "young" presidential candidate going all control-freak about a volunteers Obama MySpace page? Christ - isn't that VERY old school thinking? That news really turned me off.

Actually, this went down pretty much exactly the way I would expect a "young," less experienced candidate's campaign to handle it -- I would think a more experienced campaigner would have known that it's best to have your campaign be in control of any official candidate websites from the get-go.

I'm not as troubled by this as many have been, I guess because I do public education/p.r. work for a living (although what I do is more issues-based for a nonprofit, and not for an individual politician) and I know that sometimes well-meaning volunteers go WAY off in terms of what they're telling the public. That can be a big problem if they're out there representing themselves as your official mouthpiece while presenting what you believe or want to accomplish inaccurately. I've seen individual volunteers tell people stuff about the organization I work for that is flat-out wrong -- not just "off-message" but totally wrong -- about what we believe or do.

But it does seem likely the campaign could have handled this whole thing better. Then again, I don't know the whole story here.

bifteck

But Obama's campaign didn't have the volunteer start the page. A volunteer who had nothing to do with the campaign started the page on his own, and then the campaign got wind of it and manhandled the account away from him to make it officially managed. At least, that's what I understand of it.

wtgirl

"Oiseau" wrote: Obama will never win. Hillary will never win. I hope Guiliani will never win. McCain will never win.

But I think you are right, if Democrats nominate Clinton or Obama we will lose again. I am sorry to say but our country is still too racist and sexist in many states to seriously consider a black man or a woman for president. Why is Barack Obama the only candidate who needs secret service? Because he is he the only one getting death threats!

At this point, Global warming, the Iraq war and the dismantling of the federal government is so critical, I just want to get a candidate who CAN and WILL win.

Why not Gore/Obama? Gore/Edwards?

And thank God McCain will never win--what he once had was integrity and he seems to have lost that. He is an old man with no real vision for the future.

livetotravel

apollonia666 - I run the communications dept for a major women's reproductive health organization. We commissioned a report several years ago that interviewed all the self-described players in the Internet and PDA communications world about how young people we're talking with each other and how they were advocating for issues and for candidates.

The bottom line conclusion was that "old school" thinking had to be turned in it's head - by inverting the hierarchical pyramid and by stopping trying to control every outlet about every message that had to do with your issues and organization. In other words, back off and let advocates and volunteers have at it.

It takes a lot of discipline, trust and education of key volunteers and activists about what the organizations values and messages are and how they can best be articulated.

But it has to be done for any person, candidate or organization on the progressive side to move forward in these most trying times.

Obama's campaign was simply wrong and wrong headed to shut this volunteer down.