Obama in person (and Periello)

I was one of about 5-6,000 people who crammed into Charlottesville’s tented “pavillion” this evening to hear Barack Obama speak this evening. He was considerably better than I had expected. He spoke forthrightly about his anti- Iraq war position and said one of the first things he’d do as president is to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and make a plan to withdraw all the troops from Iraq.
(Note to Obama: Actually, you’d need to call the Secretaries of State and Defense in first, to get the diplomacy and the grand strategy right, before you call the Chiefs in.)
His two main topics were foreign policy (mainly, the war), and health care. He noted that the funds being poured into the war would be far, far better diverted into programs to rebuild American society as a community of hope rather than division and fear.
He also once, quite notably for me, said his aim would be to “Re-engage!” the US with the rest of the world.
He spoke a few times about the very bad effects Pres. Bush has had for the country and the world. He also talked quite a bit about the problems of “politics as usual”, and “bowing to the special interests”, etc etc. Those were clearly jabs at Hillary Clinton but he did not name her openly. A wise move.
He got a fabulous, enthusiastic turnout here in town, and was introduced by our Democratic Governor, Tim Kaine, who is co-chair of Obama’s national committee (I think.) Actually, Kaine was also very impressive as a speaker, when he was out there winding up the crowd for Obama.
The pundits are saying– and Kaine and Obama repeated this, this evening– that Virginia will be “in play” in the 2008 presidential election in a way it hasn’t been since the 1960s. That is, there will actually be a chance that the Dems might take the state (and therefore all of its electoral college votes), though it’s been solidly Republican for nigh these many years past.
Recently, the WaPo even said there’s a chance that our Democratic junior Senator, Jim Webb, elected last year, might be a vice-presidential running mate next year.
And more locally yet, my son this evening sent me this fascinating item from the TPM Cafe blogging area, written by a guy called Tom Periello who was explaining his decision to stand against our district’s deeply misguided Republican Congressperson, Virgil Goode.
Periello says:

    I’m running for Congress because I believe my campaign can be part of an important change in American politics. The 2006 elections demonstrated the viability of conviction politics. The great midterm candidates spoke from a deep sense of right and wrong, not a desire to position themselves on an artificial spectrum of right, left, and center…

Personally, I think he’s not being fair to Al Weed, an antiwar Democrat who ran a strong and principled campaign against Goode in 2006, but who lost. And it’s not clear to me what relationship Periello actually has with Virginia, apart from currently having some kind of temporary Guest Lecturer gig at U. Va. Law School. As I understand it, having strong local connections is (not unreasonably) important to many of the voters in our district here, whereas a lot of Periello’s life-experience so far has been as a kind of globe-trotting jurisprudentiocrat… So let’s see what happens with his candidacy as it develops further.
But Obama’s event this evening was unreservedly good news. He had a great manner, a strong organization, and spoke a lot of solid good sense. Tomorrow I’ll look for a transcript of his remarks and post them here.

    Updates Tues. a.m.:
    (1) A commenter has pointed out that Periello grew up near C ‘ville, and indeed Periello’s website notes that he graduated from the private academy that’s a stone’s throw from my house. I believe Periello needs to do a lot better job organizing in the district than he has done so far…
    (2) David Swanson was hard at work live-blogging the Obama event last night. Sean Tubbs was recording it for a podcast. I’m not seeing anything about it yet on Obama’s website.
    (3) This story by Bob Gibson in the local paper reported that, “Barack Obama drew more than 4,250 people to an outdoor rally and fundraiser Monday night at the Charlottesville Pavilion, surpassing a fundraiser that Hillary Clinton staged Sept. 23… by more than 3,000 paid attendees.” Also this: “Organizer James B. Murray Jr. said the gathering was the largest paid crowd that Obama has drawn anywhere as a presidential candidate and noted that the fundraiser out-raised Clinton’s previous Charlottesville total of $200,000 by more than $100,000.” This parallel report is also worth reading.
    The DP once again showed its incredibly skewed news judgment by putting those reports down near the fold on p.1. Topping them was a story titled (yawn!) “Ambulance plan remains divisive.”

Back to the book-factory for me. But great to see that the concept of the US “re-engaging” with the rest of the world on new and healthier terms is now entering the political lexicon…

25 thoughts on “Obama in person (and Periello)”

  1. I have two major problems with Obama, and it is hard for me to support him for these reasons. they are:
    1) He is two-faced or cowardly on the Palestine issue.
    2) He had the opportunity to be a serious candidate for the left and for change, but he has continuously come to positions that seem more moderate than he actually holds.
    The first is quite troubling because he has claimed to be against, as you quote, “bowing to the special interests”, but AIPAC is the most quintessential special interest, and it seems he has broken with his long time paster and his close friend Rashid Khalidi on this issue (at least publicly). Not only is this issue extremely important for world peace, but it tends to be a very good leading indicator of how much you can trust a politician. So, considering Obama’s positions and his speech to AIPAC, it leaves me pretty disappointed. I guess this is even more the case considering that no one knew the first thing about his views before he got popular. so he was in a position to take a more honest position than most other politicians. but he chickened out.
    as for the second, along the lines of my other comments, Obama should have known that his popularity was largely based on the excitement of those like myself who are looking for genuine change in the USA. Obama was not popular for who he is, as he was totally unknown… But he has lost most of that core excitement because he has taken such moderate positions. It seems to me that the original excitement for him has moved to Ron Paul, John Edwards (as he has become more progressive in his statements) and a protest vote for Stephen Colbert. This is Obama’s fault. He could have given us reason to stay excited about him, but now he looks as establishment as anyone else.
    anyway, that said, i am not very excited for Obama and will not vote for him in my primary. If he get the nomination, i might reluctantly decide to vote for him, but i think he could have saved us all the trouble had he just had the guts enough take some serious positions.

  2. I’m concerned by Obama’s attempts to use Social Security as an issue to smear Clinton, too. SS is not a problem, yet Obama adopted the right-wing’s tactic of accusing Clinton of being “dishonest” when she refused to produce a
    ‘solution’ to the presumed problem. I’m not interested in seeing Democratic candidates do the Republicans’ smear work for them. Obama’s religiosity is also off-putting. If he does not share fundamentalists’ bigotry, he should stop courting them on those issues, particularly since he seems to want his would-be constituents to see him as more honest than other candidates. Of course, it’s quite possible that he does share those biases and is being honest. In which case, I have no problem with his behavior; I just won’t vote for him.

  4. “one of the first things he’d do as president is to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and make a plan to withdraw all the troops from Iraq.”
    At some unspecified time after 2013? Riiiiiiight!

  5. It does appear Perriello has solid Albemarle County roots — with STAB apparently capping off years in public schools. I’m especially intrigued by his apparent core theme that to fix problems in backwater, down and out VuhGINyah, we have to re-engage the entire world — e.g., “the common good” — to return to September 12th, not the 11th.
    I liked Al Weed too, but his position stances, esp. on domestic issues, to me didn’t have the creative appeal neeeded to break off enough of the conservative mass (social and libertarian varieties) in this district. (I recall Weed was hoping to energize and get out the largely apathetic liberal vote — and he did get more votes than recent Virgil challengers)
    I’ll be curious to see more of Mr. Perreillo’s postions…
    Last thing, did ya catch his use of the Monticello image on his web site? And remember my posts about Vuhgil Gode’s positions being the anti-thesis of Jefferson…?
    :-}

  6. I have spoken with Tom Perriello a few times, and I have been impressed with his energy and political acumen. You say that he needs to do a better job of organizing — we have been telling him to hold off on the organizing until after the election next week. I expect that after the dust settles from the November election, we will see an upswing of activity from Tom Perriello and from David Shreve, also from Albemarle County, who is also interested in challenging Virgil Goode.
    For what it is worth, I don’t think Tom or David in any way minimizes the effort or commitment of Al Weed. From my conversations with them, both of them are quite aware of how hard Al has worked to try to bring the 5th District into the 21st Century.
    They are both capable people who have a good handle on what is wrong with the country. I am looking forward to the campaign, but I hope that we all know that we need to raise about 3 times as much money as Al ever raised. And I use the first person plural pronoun, as the subject of the sentence, advisedly.

  8. Certainly Barak Obama is not someone I would consider voting for in the primary, although he is marginally better than Hillary “Lieberman Lite” Clinton.
    Obama has a cowardly habit of ducking out of potentially awkward Senate votes – a pattern I understand he established before he was elected to the U.S. Senate.
    Obama has shown that he is much too willing to consider bombs a worthwhile options. He has even suggested that he would bomb the north of Pakistan if Musharraf didn’t perform to his satisfaction.
    Oh yes – and Obama knows the REAL reason they “hate us”. The whole problem, according to him, is that “they” – meaning “the Muslims” – don’t really understand us because, after all, they only hear about “us” from our enemies. Therefore, says Obama, what the U.S. needs is, to put it in a nutshell, better P.R. To that end Obama has proposed a series of really patronizing programs like setting up “America Houses” in cities all over the Muslim world where, while the U.S. bombs their countries, installs and props up their brutal dictators, and takes control of their resources, Muslims can learn how good the U.S. is for them. Why, these “America Houses” will even have internet cafes where Muslims can come and learn AAAAAALLLLLLL about the wonders of the internet, ’cause gosh! Obama wants to introduce those backward folks to the internet. Oh yeah, and they will also have English instruction in “America House”.
    And Obama will dispatch hordes of young fresh-faced Americans throughout the Muslim world to show Muslims there the “true face” of America. Oh,yeah! THAT will make the bombs and the dictators and the stolen resources all seem worth it.
    So, just like Bush, Obama is convinced that it’s all about making the package look pretty. The fact that the contents of the package is all s*** isn’t what matters.
    Alas! No matter what, Americans will never elect a President that the world deserves.

  9. Thanks for the local insights Lloyd. (As for the fund-raising, hope the next candidate’s efforts don’t get way-layed by any early tv miscues.) We’ll watch for more roll-outs after next week. :-}
    Whether Republican or Democrat, it would be nice for a change to have a Congressman from our district who could make us proud rather than cringe with horror…. and one who gave a Jeffersonian hoot about “the opinions of mankind.” (I’d also like to see a local Republican take on Vuhgil too…. — he’s been a disgrace to us all.)
    As one further creative idea, might not we have candidates look into the issue of broadband? I have a hunch this issue will resonate widely across this “have-not” district. Why is it that in states like Pennsylvania and Oregon, citizens who want to enter the 21st century (!) technologically, and who live within pre-defined distances from each other, can collectively petition and force their telephone companies to provide broadband. (DSL version) (It’s really frustrating to see this option advertised on the Embarq web site — for customers in PA. When you call and ask for a similar option in Virginia, the embarq representatives will candidly tell you, talk to your legislators…?? e.g., typical Bush corporate America arrogance….)
    I’ve written about this frustrating subject before. Virginia’s current “free market” approach hasn’t worked. (and CVEC’s BPL — using unshielded power lines — remains a screaming joke…. Promises on top of promises — all empty — for five years now.)
    Sure, you can now get Embarq (Sprint) DSL in Charlottesville for $20 a month. But go south just 7 miles, and where you don’t have ancient cable lines, your only option is horrendously unreliable and very expensive Satellite broadband(By the way, Wildblue also doesn’t work when it rains in Texas — er, that was the excuse they used a dozen+ times this past August…!)
    And “folks” wonder why economic development in southside Virginia remains so “retarded.”
    Seems to me rural broadband is yet another area where Bubba can be persuaded that government stimulation of development — of a public good — is “a good thing.” (The technology is here, NOW, to expand DSL out into even remote rural areas — but unless government gets involved, the technology gap between the haves and have-nots will get worse….)

  10. Not one of the “Democrats” Barak Obama, You-Know-Her, or John Edwards — and certainly none of the pathetic Republican Party rat pack — has the first clue about America’s greatest domestic problem: namely, Warfare Welfare and Makework Militarism; what Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce long ago defined as:
    “Army. n. A class of non-producers who defend the nation by devouring everything that might tempt an enemy to invade.”
    Why on earth would any sane enemy “follow us home” when doing so would mean having to assume the monumental war debts we keep piling up on our kids and grandkids to finance our deadbeat, free-lunch ordnance expenditure expeditions? What enemy would consider for a moment actually “fighting” us to prevent our intergenerational depredations upon our own descendants?
    America has already died from eating its own children’s tomorrow so that Israeli squatters can feel “safer” persecuting and disposessing Palestinian Arabs for one more day. No enemy worth the name would ever do a thing to save us from our own selfish stupidity; and expecting them to do so by “fighting” us “over here” — when we continue voluntarily bankrupting ourselves “over there” — stretches even American credulity past the point of parody.

  11. So, just like Bush, Obama is convinced that it’s all about making the package look pretty.
    Shirin, the matter isn’t Obama’s package as such the matter is those who believe in Obama’s package that should the concerns as he said:
    “don’t really understand us because, after all, they only hear about “us” from our enemies.
    Here is as same as “THEY”, Americans hear from their folks “liars” believes in their set of lies this the disastrous thing here.

  12. Bush “America House” principle resiged,
    She may know a lot about Texas and politics in the U.S., but she had absolutely no background or experience to qualify her for a leading role in U.S. mid-east relations in general or relations with Muslims, in particular.
    Theyre all leaving in droves like the rats leaving the sinking ship. Only thing is they left their king rat aboard still and running the country.

  14. Do how did the 31st October democratic presidential candidates debate go? Did Obama discuss any of his policies in detail? Was Kucinich given the opportunity to discuss his? Did Clinton, the front runner, manage to seem less unappealing?

  15. That may have puzzled some. For “Do how did” at the start of my above question please read “So how did….” Sorry folks should have checked my typing before rushing out the door.

  16. I find nothing more depressing about America’s mediocre political “leadership” than their complete lack of spontaneous wit during these tedious cattle-calls. When the oily corporate shill Tim Russert debased the “debate” — and the debaters — by asking each candidate if they had seen a U. F. O., not a one of them looked him straight in the eye and answered: “Oh, do you mean an Uncouth Fatuous Opportunist, Tim? Well … I do believe I’m looking at one right this minute.”
    The prospect of seeing and hearing something like that would almost tempt me to watch one of these tedious cattle calls again.

  17. returns to Texas hubby.
    “On Wednesday, Hughes said she is looking forward to rejoining her family in the Lone Star State.”
    That’s code for, “I’ll be taking a job with a high-paying lobbying/defense/oil firm.”

  18. Wounder Obama get guys better than old Bush “America House” dirctors,
    Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid “physical labor” and wrote of the need to “keep elevating the threat,” “link Iraq to Iran” and develop “bumper sticker statements” to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war.

  19. Thanks Michael so there was little clear discussion of many major issues/policy platforms and the UFO thing was the focal point of the evening? “Only in America” as they say. So, as suggested on other sites, there only appeared to be one genuinely progressive candidate left at this debate and he was effectively smeared?

  21. In the upcoming Presidential primaries, Americans will have the chance to choose among candidates who propose immediate withdrawal from Iraq (Richardson), rapid drawdowns (Edwards and Obama), open-ended commitment to the war (Giuliani, Romney, McCain), or a resigned middle ground, notably Hillary Clinton, who acknowledges that the occupation will likely endure well into the next Presidential term no matter which party occupies the White House.
    Ask the Iraqis

  22. Thanks Salah, is there a candidate or candidates among those listed in your above quote that you think has a better policy on Iraq and the Middle East? My concern, How “rapid” is a “rapid draw down” and does it leave US troops in Iraq in 2013 and beyond? Not to mention candidate’s policy on Iran, Lebanon, or the Gaza situation.

  23. Friend Roland,
    The point here is clear Roland, after five years US and its poppet regime in Iraq can’t reach to a statues of stability and security.
    Today Iraqis living as prisoners in their homes they striped from their personal weapons were using it to defend themselves, many arrested, many holding in US camps and other tortured, then AQI start slaughtering Iraqis neither US forces nor Iraqi police/army stopping them the situation worsening very badly, then US thought ok let support Iraqis/tribes and allow them to get weapons again to fight AQI after those years US and its Iraqi counterpart failed to stop the slaughtering of Iraqis, then the surge came, now US commanders saying the surge strategy working in Iraq.
    Iraqi very sensitive toward occupations and invaders their bloody history tells them how much suffering they went through and how long they fought to defend their land and get back from invaders, so Iraqi felt they mislead by US for two reasons:
    1- US through many official continually stating they staying in Iraq which most Iraq (70% as many poll telling) opposing US forces stays in Iraq. Despite President Bush said “American troops will leave whenever the Iraqis ask us to.”
    2- Iraqi watching closely what US doing for privatizations of their resources which they suffered severely for the last 30 years in hope that these resource time will come to be used for their bright future, now US working tirelessly to take them from them instead of their security and the chaos that they living in for the last five years.
    So Iraqi need to hear and see there is a fix plane to withdraw US forces and leaving Iraqis later to deal with their resources, of course I have no doubt US will be in front of all others to take benefits of Iraqi resources in the end but when Iraqi returning to normality.
    So the the new candidate need to understand what really happing, by taking leadership and be active to show real leadership and control of Iraqi case because as much the Iraqi case delayed more damaging will cause to US.

  24. Friend Salah, of course you set out your countries interests for whoever is the next US president. I understand what you said about the feelings of Iraqis and the significance of those feelings, the tragic losses and dire circumstances they allude to. In your situation I would answer the same. I too hope a US presidential candidate that understands your country, and feels properly responsible for its future welfare, is elected.
    No doubt you understand that our very corrupt western “democtratic” system makes it appear impossible for people of conscience on our side of the divide to push for any improvement in dealings with the Iraqi people. Rest assured that will never stop us. Iraqi people may not all know how many friends they have in the West, but you Salah please do not forget, pass on that message and keep talking to us about how we can help.

  25. Roland,
    Salah please do not forget, pass on that message and keep talking to us about how we can help.
    Friend Roland, I do and I will countue doing it for the best of Iraqi and Amaricans.
    May I take this opportunity to thank our host Helena Cobban for her help to allow me to put forward my views about Iraq war and thanks to all our friends who are like you Roland.

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