Obama Express heading for DC

President-elect Barack Obama started from Philadelphia in the morning heading to Washington DC on an historic train ride mirroring the last leg of Abraham Lincoln's inaugural journey to the nation's capital.

Obama stopped in Wilmington, Delaware and Baltimore, Maryland before boarding the chartered train to DC with Vice President-elect Joe Biden and both of their wives and families. The Obamas will stay in Blair House, the official presidential guest house, until the inauguration.

A number of balls and galas are scheduled to take place in the capital prior to the inauguration, which is expected to attract around 2 million people.

BBC News

Obama in Delaware
New York Times - 1 hour ago
Following is the prepared text of Barack Obama's remarks in Wilmington, Del., as provided by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
Video: Obama's Whistle-stop Tour Makes First Stop AssociatedPress


Obama calls for 'new declaration of independence'USA Today



Seattle Post Intelligencer
All Aboard the Obama Express!
Buzz Log, CA - 34 minutes ago
by Mike Krumboltz Barack Obama will soon have the toughest job on the planet. But at least he's traveling in style for his first day at the office. ...
Obama joins list of presidents arriving by train St. Augustine Record

President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden are planning a pre-inaugural celebration with their families in Baltimore on Jan. 17.

Obama will start the day in Philadelphia and the event will focus on the inaugural theme of "Renewing America's Promise" -- featuring cities with historic connections to that theme: Philadelphia, where the nation's founders signed the Declaration of Independence; Baltimore, "where the country's independence was defended,"; and Washington, the nation's capital.

"As part of the most open and accessible inauguration in history, we hope to include as many Americans as possible who wish to participate but can't be in Washington," Emmett S. Beliveau, director of the inaugural committee, said in a statement. "These events will allow us to do that while honoring the rich history and tradition of previous inaugural journeys."

Telegraph.co.uk

Obama, Biden to hold event in Baltimore before inauguration
Baltimore Sun - 1 hour ago
By Paul West | paul.west@baltsun.com WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and their families will hold a pre-inaugural event in Baltimore on Saturday, Jan. 17, as they travel to Washington by train for the ...
Obama, Biden Inauguration road show to hit Philadelphia ... Chicago Sun-Times
Obamas & Bidens to Arrive By Train to Kick-Off Inauguration Weekend ABC News

Houses

Philadelphia residents talk about the McCain housing dilemma i.e., what to do when you have so many houses you can't keep track of them all.

35,000 in Philadelphia

Wow, a huge crowd in Philadelphia this late in the campaign. A very good sign for Barack Obama and supporters.

35,000 in Philadelphia

by Caitlin Harvey, Friday, April 18, 2008 at 06:56 PM

Over 35,000 people came out to hear Barack speak at the largest rally in the campaign's history in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia tonight.

In his remarks, he challenged America to join him in declaring independence from the Washington game-playing and special interest-dominated politics that have blocked so much progress in recent years.

Barack said:

It was over two hundred years ago that a group of patriots gathered in this city to do something that no one in the world believed they could do. After years of a government that didn’t listen to them, or speak for them, or represent their hopes and their dreams, a few humble colonists came to Philadelphia to declare their independence from the tyranny of the British throne.

The union they created has endured for two centuries not because we’re perfect, but because we’ve always been perfectible – because each generation of Americans has been willing to stand up and sacrifice and do what’s necessary to inch us closer to the ideals at the core of our founding promise – equality, and liberty, and opportunity for all who seek it. That’s how we survived a civil war and two world wars; a Great Depression and great struggles for civil rights and women’s rights and worker’s rights, and now Philadelphia it's our turn.

...

The challenges we face are not just the fault of one man or one party. How many years – how many decades – have we been talking about solving our health care crisis? How many Presidents have promised to end our dependence on foreign oil? How many jobs have gone overseas in the 70s, and the 80s, and the 90s? And we still don’t have a strategy for American workers to succeed in a global economy. We’re still talking about it in 2008. And everyone here knows why.

Because in every election, politicians come to your cities and your towns, and they tell you what you want to hear, and they make big promises, and they lay out all these plans and policies. But then they go back to Washington when the campaign’s over, and nothing changes. Lobbyists spend millions of dollars to get their way. Folks would rather score political points than solve real problems. Instead of fighting for health care or jobs, Washington ends up fighting over the latest distraction of the week. It happens year after year after year.

But not this year. Not this time. This year we can’t afford the same old politics. This year we can declare our independence from this kind of politics. That’s change we need right now. And that’s the choice you’ll face on Tuesday.

...

In four days, you get the chance to help bring about the change that we need right now. Here in the city and the state that gave birth to our democracy, we can declare our independence from the politics that has shut us out, and let us down, and told us to settle.

We can declare our independence from the politics that’s put the oil companies, and the drug companies, and the insurance companies in charge of the decisions that impact our lives and our children’s lives.

We can declare independence from the say-anything, do-anything politics that’s all about how to win and not why we should; that politics that exploits our differences instead of speaking to our common concerns and our common destinies as Americans.

We can do all these things, but only if we declare our independence from the cynicism and the doubt that tells us that change can’t happen.

Declare your independence from cynicism and doubt by volunteering to get out the vote in your community!

Obama News Roundup

Here's the new web ad released by the Obama campaign.

Note that the ad includes John McCain!

In this video, Barack speaks about healthcare in Gary, Indiana.



In Terre Haute, Indiana, Barack responds to the combined attacks by Hillary Clinton and John McCain.



In this video, Barack discusses the importance of community organizing while volunteers in the Philadelphia campaign office register voters.



Franktuary, a NY style hot dog restaurant in downtown Pittsburgh, created two meals based on the candidates, the Barackwurst for Barack Obama.

Penn. Union endorses Barack Obama

The Philadelphia-based local of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees endorsed Barack Obama today along with former Montana senator, John Melcher, a superdelegate.

The 16,000 member union is a member of the AFSCME labor organization, the national branch of which has endorsed Hillary Clinton. AFSCME does not forbid its local affiliates from making independent endorsements.

Recently, the Obama and Clinton camps have sparred over whether Clinton had supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Obama does not support free trade agreements that do not include labor and environmental standards. He has also opposed tax breaks for corporations that outsource.

The Illinois senator does support free trade agreements with the right labor and environmental protections and opposes outsourcing tax breaks and not outsourcing itself. Obama has also been an advocate for immigration reform that would allow more immigration to reunite families, and also allow visas for those who bring in needed skills and expertise.



Barack speaks at the AFL-CIO convention in Philadelphia this morning.

Video: Philadelphia Speech

Check out Barack's well-written and well-delivered speech today in Philadelphia.

Barack Obama: "A More Perfect Union"

Here is the speech delivered by Barack Obama today in Philadelphia addressing the racial tone of the campaign.

As Prepared for Delivery...

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicia ns, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committ ed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Philadephia Black Clergy endorse Barack Obama

The Seattle Times reports that the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity has endorsed Barack Obama for president.

Philly Black Clergy Endorse Obama

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The members of a black clergy group in Philadelphia have endorsed Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic primary for president.

The president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, the Rev. Ellis Washington, says his group voted overwhelmingly in support of Obama. The organization represents about 200 churches in the Philadelphia area.

Washington says the black clergy's support of Obama over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was much more than a racial issue. He says the Illinois senator's ability to inspire young people and his status as a man of faith played a big role in the endorsement.

Washington says Obama's far-reaching appeal outweighed the popularity of the Clintons in the black community.

The group announced the endorsement Thursday. The state primary is April 22.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Philadephia Inquirer endorses Barack Obama

As voters make their choice for Democratic nominee in South Carolina, Obama supporters will be glad to hear of another newspaper endorsement, this time from the Philadephia Inquirer.

Inquirer’s Democratic endorsement for president: Obama

Change.

Democrats are so sure Americans want a change from the eight years they have endured under President Bush that the party thinks winning back the White House from the Republicans is virtually guaranteed.

But only if the right nominee is chosen for the office.

Barely a month into the calendar of caucuses and primaries, the field has been winnowed. Gone are Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich. Quixotic is the only way to describe Mike Gravel's campaign heading to Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, when more than 20 states, including New Jersey and Delaware, will hold their caucuses and primaries.

John Edwards' hopes had hinged on the outcome of yesterday's primary in his home state of South Carolina. On the party's ticket for vice president in 2004, Edwards' populist style might have made him a formidable candidate in any other presidential election.

But not this one.

This year it's been hard for anyone to get traction against two candidates who would make history no matter which one is nominated - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In them, Democrats could choose as their nominee either the first woman or the first African American to become president.

But the choice is hard.

In some respects, Clinton is much better prepared than was her husband, Bill, when he, as Arkansas governor, was elected president in 1992. The senator from New York could be a strong leader, comparable to Britain's Margaret Thatcher, but with a compassion for children's issues that could glue the nation's focus on its most precious asset.

But in an election where change is the operative word, would the former first lady represent that? After two Bush presidencies, many Americans don't see change in a Clinton dynasty. Hillary's high negatives in polls may have more to do with her husband's behavior as president than anything she has done since. But those negatives suggest she could be a catalyst for division when the nation longs for unity.

Given that, BARACK OBAMA is the best Democrat to lead this nation past the nasty, partisan, Washington-as-usual politics that have blocked consensus on Iraq; politics that never blinked at the greedy, subprime mortgage schemes that could spawn a recession; politics that have greatly diminished our country's stature in the world.

Obama inspires people to action. And while inspiration alone isn't enough to get a job done, it's a necessary ingredient to begin the hard work.

Obama's appeal to Americans to have the audacity to hope, even in the face of tragedies such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, has fallen on fertile ground. Americans want desperately to believe they can overcome any difficulty - given the right leadership.

But the Illinois senator has shown on the campaign trail that he offers more than pretty words. In debates and speeches, he has provided details of a White House program that, with adjustments, could produce the outcomes this nation needs.

On the war, Obama wants to have all combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months, while maintaining a force in the region for targeted strikes on al-Qaeda. On the economy, he proposes tax credits for working families and a mortgage credit to help lower-income homeowners. He proposes a national health insurance exchange to help individuals purchase coverage. He wants to do better than No Child Left Behind to improve education.

The question is whether a first-term U.S. senator with no major record as an Illinois legislator is ready to be president. His life story says yes. This former community organizer knows how to bring people together to beat the odds. Others who seemed an unlikely fit rose to the occasion once in the Oval Office. Obama could do that, too.

Debate reviews

Here is a gleaning of news reviews from last night's debate compiled by Sarah Ramey and Gary Brooks of the official barackobama.com blog:

Associated Press

...Barack Obama...sharply challenged Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's candor, consistency and judgment Tuesday in a televised debate that underscored her front-runner status two months before the first presidential primary votes.

Obama, the Illinois senator, began immediately, saying Clinton has changed her positions on the North American Free Trade Agreement, torture policies and the Iraq war. Leadership, he said, does not mean "changing positions whenever it's politically convenient."

Washington Post

Sen. Barack Obama...criticized [Hillary Clinton] directly for not releasing her correspondence as first lady. But he kept his cool demeanor, describing her tendency toward secrecy as simply "a problem."

Obama pursued Clinton most pointedly over her White House papers, most of which are still locked away in her husband's presidential library in Little Rock. She said that she had approved the release of the papers, a point that national archivists dispute.

"We have just gone through one of the most secretive administrations in our history, and not releasing, I think, these records at the same time, Hillary, that you're making the claim that this is the basis for your experience, I think, is a problem," Obama said.

Politico

The heart of Clinton’s case was that if Republicans hate her, she must be doing something right.

But Obama came back sharper.

"Part of the reason Republicans are obsessed with you, Hillary, is I think that’s a fight they’re very comfortable having," he responded, adding that "what we don’t need is another eight years of bickering."

The Atlantic

Obama’s criticisms were about philosophy and process; about another eight years of polarizing politics; about the approach to the issue, rather than the issue itself. Twice at the end he showed his sense of of humor -- very effectively.

It is too soon to tell whether Obama sufficiently abandoned his inner McClellan to satisfy some
of his allies and pacify his donors. He may not have met the expectations of the press, but those expectations are fairly ethereal. Obama will argue against Clinton on his own terms; he will not throw sound bites at her. He does not lack the fortitude to craft a zinger, he just doesn’t, as a matter of course, like to traffic in them – they are too base, too customary, too politics-as-usual for him. There is a reason why Obama only compared Clinton’s foreign policy to Bush-Cheney Lite once – he felt he had gone to too far.

So – on his own terms, yes, Obama did not temporize and drew strong contrasts with Clinton.

Los Angeles Times

[Bill Clinton], Russert pointed out, has specifically requested the National Archives to delay any such release [of Hillary Clinton's records of her activities as first lady]for several years. "Would you lift that ban?" Russert asked.

"Well, that's not my decision to make...[b]ut certainly we'll move as quickly as our circumstances and the processes of the National Archives permits."

An answer guaranteed to make most eyes glaze over. But Obama effectively jumped in, noting that on one hand Clinton stresses her experience as first lady, while on the other she takes a passive approach to allowing a thorough examination of her activities during those years.

"Part of what we have to do is invite the American people back to participate in their government again," Obama said. "Part of what we need to do is rebuild trust in our government again. And that means being open and transparent and accountable to the American people."

Politico

This debate ended wacky, with a question to Kucinich about his UFO sighting, which he confirmed, and joked about.

That handed Obama his best spontaneous moment, in response to a question about life beyond earth.

"What I know is there's life here on Earth, and we're not attending to life here on Earth," he said.

Nashua Telegraph

A Navy judge advocate general and lifelong Republican endorsed Sen. Barack Obama's Democratic presidential campaign Tuesday.

John Hutson is also dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord.

During a conference call with reporters, Hutson praised Obama's early opposition to the war in Iraq and said he's the best candidate to restore America's moral standing in the world.

Washington Post

House Democrats sharply criticized the head of the Justice Department's voting section yesterday for making a series of racially charged statements, including his suggestion that black voters are not hurt as much as whites by voter identification laws because "they die first."

Tanner's testimony followed a series of remarks this month that have caused a political uproar and led to calls from some Democrats, including senator and presidential hopeful Barack Obama (Ill.), that Tanner resign or be fired.

MSNBC - (Howard Fineman): She talked about the process. And also that was the one time where Obama turned toward her, what we used to call in old debate language, the pivot, remember that? He turned toward her and he said look, this will not stand because if you're claiming the presidency based on your being the first lady, you've got to come clean on that. I thought that was his best debating point that he's made in any of these debates so far."



ABC News - Political Radar (Jake Tapper): I think Obama's having a pretty good night. LINK



Fox News (Major Garrett): [On Social Security] …Obama took the question and enlarged it both philosophically and tangibly. …Thus, Obama trumped the stage by giving his tax policy a philosophic core (help young earners and cash-pinched retirees), while taxing the rich with either higher income or payroll taxes. Obama's best substantive moment, by quite some distance. LINK



Atlantic - Marc Ambinder: Bottom line, before all the analysis: …Barack Obama's were more resonant… LINK



ABC News - Political Radar: "You asked me if I would pledge, and I have pledged." -- Clinton, sounding, shall we say, Clintonian. Then Obama gets a bit deeper: "We have been governed by fear these past six years." THERE is the link to his campaign message that was missing earlier this evening. It does seem like the Obama camp has plotted this out a good bit this evening. LINK



Washington Post - The Fix (Chris Cillizza) "Obama: We Will Not Be Governed by Fear": …It was a nice moment for Obama especially because both Clinton and Edwards, whose answers had preceded his own, simply said they would do everything in their power to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. These debates are about creating opportunities and taking advantage of them. Obama just did it. LINK



Washington Post - The Fix (Chris Cillizza): …Obama Scores on His Background LINK



New York Times - The Caucus (Katharine Seelye): Alternative Minimum Tax - 10:39 p.m. …Mr. Obama also said he would not campaign on the Rangel plan, but here he made a smart tactical move, turning the discussion to problems faced not by the richest people in the country but by struggling single mothers. LINK



Huffington Post: Glynnis (9:48:12 PM): The reason the GOP is focusing on You is cause that's the fight they're comfortable having…Obama steps out of the corner!! LINK



New York Times - The Caucus (Katharine Seelye): Licenses for Undocumented Immigrants - 10:58 p.m. …Mr. Obama uttered a devastating phrase for anyone who remembers the 2004 campaign: he said he couldn't tell if she is "for it or against it." LINK

Frank Luntz' focus group of Fox judged Obama the debate winner:




Clip from the debate