Starts at 1:08. Cynthia Davis, Representative 19th District Missouri State House. And by the way, she's a Republican.
| |
From the New York Times:
Senators John McCain and Barack Obama began their final push for the White House on Saturday across an electoral map markedly different from four years ago, evidence of Mr. Obama’s success at putting new states into contention and limiting Mr. McCain’s options in the final hours.
Mr. Obama was using the last days of the contest to make incursions into Republican territory, campaigning Saturday in three states — Colorado, Missouri and Nevada — that President Bush won relatively comfortably in 2004.
Across the country, there was abundant evidence of just how much excitement the contest had stirred: In Colorado, 46 percent of the electorate has already voted in that state’s early voting program. Voters in states like Missouri, Montana, North Carolina and Virginia were getting knocks on their doors, telephone calls and leaflets slipped under their windshield wipers.
...“After 12 months and three debates,” Mr. Obama said in Henderson, Nev., “John McCain has not been able to tell the American people a single major thing that he would do different from George Bush on the economy.”
...The campaign’s final days brought a reminder of how Mr. Obama’s financial might had allowed him to redraw the political map. In addition to the states he visited on Saturday, Mr. Obama was planning stops Sunday in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, which went Republican four years ago.
From the Missouri News-Leader:
"Yes we can," Obama said, his slogan across 21 months of campaigning.
...Obama was in Nevada, then Colorado and Missouri, all states that voted for President Bush four years ago. Obama's visit to Colorado marked his sixth trip to the swing state since he clinched his party's nomination in June.
...When Obama arrived in Pueblo, Colo., his family was waiting for him on the tarmac, wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha. Obama kissed his wife, hugged his daughters.
"We are three days away from bringing fundamental change to the United States of America," Obama said. He told the crowd not to let up. "Not when so much is at stake," he said.
...Campaigning in Missouri became a family affair for Obama, who appeared on stage with his wife and daughters before tens of thousands gathered on a high school football field in Springfield, Mo. The location was in Green County, where 62 percent of voters cast ballots for Bush four years ago.
"After eight years of failed policies from George W. Bush," Obama started, sparking a chorus of boos from the crowd at the president's name. "We don't need to boo, we just need to vote," he responded.
...Obama seized on Cheney's fresh endorsement of McCain, praising the vice president for climbing out of his "undisclosed location."
"I'd like to congratulate Sen. McCain on this endorsement, because he really earned it," Obama said in Pueblo, Colo. "That endorsement didn't come easy. Sen. McCain had to vote with George Bush 90 percent of the time and agree with Dick Cheney to get it."
Like Obama and McCain, the vice presidential running mates campaigned toward the finish line.
Sen. Joe Biden was in Indiana, another traditionally Republican state where Democrats are running hard, and later in Ohio, a competitive state. He accused Republicans of "trying to take the low road to the highest office in the land. They are calling Barack Obama every name in the book."
...Early voting statistics were large, and tilted Democratic. In North Carolina, officials said 2.3 million ballots had been cast as of Saturday morning, 52 percent of them by Democrats and 30 percent by Republicans.
In Missouri, spokesman Justin Hamilton said Obama's campaign had agreements with cab companies across the state to provide Election Day rides to the polls for any voter who wanted one.
He said the callers would not be asked how they intended to vote.
From the Kansas City Star:
More than 100 Obama supporters have cut through Saturday’s thick fog to await last-minute instructions at campaign headquarters in midtown Kansas City.
Some have coffee and donuts before starting phone calls or marching through neighborhoods, looking for votes.
“This is kind of our rehearsal for Tuesday,” said volunteer Jackie Gafford. “Everybody knows what they need to do.”
“I might not have done this in Kansas, with all their early voting,” said volunteer Caroline McKnight, who will be making phone calls for Obama. “But they’re really excited in Missouri to get out on Election Day.”
...Obama has the biggest political ground effort in Missouri’s history.
“These are all folks now, no matter what happens November 4, who are really engaged in their communities,” said Buffy Wicks, Obama state director.
Penny Hershman is one of Obama’s 250 neighborhood leaders in Jackson County. There are 2,500 of them in the state, workers who have been trained in political outreach — after promising to work a minimum of 20 hours each week for the Democrat.
Hershman stopped last week at the south Kansas City home of Mark Bureman, who quickly told her she would not have to work too hard. Bureman was firmly onboard with Obama.
“This is going to be an easy house for you,” he said.
Hershman asked whether Bureman and his wife, Linda, could volunteer to make phone calls at Obama headquarters over the weekend. Check and check. Both signed up for shifts.
Being from the area helps, Hershman said. “You say, ‘I’m Penny, and I’m from the neighborhood.’ I think they respond to you a little better.”
...The campaign has established a sophisticated, computer-based outreach program — all data wind up getting poured into a big database in Chicago — that climaxes this weekend.
Campaign staff leadership has been divided into 400 similar teams. A team supervisor works with coordinators of canvassing, data processing, volunteer recruitment and phone banks. The teams are in charge of a particular area and keep meticulous notes about each contact made, either in person or over the phone.
...“There’s been this disconnect,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and Obama supporter. “There’s not been a focus on connecting people who want to be a part of the campaign to the campaign.”
The tools, of course, have changed. Door knocks and phone calls have been added to cell phone outreach and text-messaging, a technological advantage that has brought the Obama campaign millions of dollars and thousands of extra volunteers.
What about you Colorado, Virginia and Pennsylvania?
We need you. It's not about him, it's about you.
It's not about them, it's about us.
Vote. Volunteer.
One of those taking part is Eugene Hedlund of Truth and Hope whom many of us supported in 2004 when he ran some independent ads for Howard Dean. This ad still brings tears when I see it. It only ran in Vermont near the end, but it was quite a tribute to Dean.
Eugene sent an email today saying that after the ad above appeared the man was subjected to attacks in his town.
From the email:
Over the weekend, Barack held two rallies in Missouri on Saturday, which drew a record total of 175,000 people. After the rally in St. Louis, Barack took the time to stop by Obama headquarters in Kansas City.
Here’s a video of Barack’s unannounced visit, during which he joined volunteers to call supporters and undecided voters, encouraging them to make sure they get out and vote on November 4th:
Peter Rubi
OFA Headquarters
Chicago, Illinois
UPDATE: OMG! It really is over 100,000 people! Look at these pics! I am like shaking with excitement, and I wasn't even there! This is amazing!
The pics are rolling in now, I'll make a slideshow probably in the next 30 minutes or so. . .
Barack just concluded his speech underneath the Gatway Arch in St. Louis, in front of a record crowd of over 100,000 people. "All I can say is, wow," Barack said as he took the stage.
We need new priorities in Washington. I think it’s time to give a tax cut to the teachers and janitors who work in our schools; to the cops and firefighters who keep us safe; to the waitresses working double shifts, the nurses in the ER, and the plumbers fighting for their American Dream. These workers are the backbone of our country. They are the ones that Washington has forgotten. They’re the ones I’ll fight for. And while Senator McCain ignores the payroll taxes you pay to score a few political points, I’ll put a tax cut into the pockets of working people so you can pay the bills, put away some savings, and pass on a brighter future to your children.
So Senator McCain can keep trying to attack me and distract you – but it’s not going to work. Not this time – not now. Because while my opponent thinks this campaign is all about me – the truth is, this campaign is about you. Your jobs. Your health care. Your retirement. Your children’s future. That’s what this election is about. That’s what I’m fighting for. Because I can take two more weeks of these attacks from John McCain, but the American people can’t take four more years of the same failed policies and the same divisive politics. That’s why I’m running for President of the United States.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch endorsed Barack Obama for president this morning. The newspaper tells readers that Barack is right on the issues, will bring public service back to Washington and can unite America in a time of economic crisis. Read the endorsement below...
Nine Days before the Feb. 5 presidential primaries in Missouri and Illinois, this editorial page endorsed Barack Obama and John McCain in their respective races.
We did so enthusiastically. We wrote that either Mr. Obama’s message of hope or Mr. McCain’s independence and integrity offered America “the chance to turn the page on 28 years of contentious, greed-driven politics and move into a new era of possibility.”
Over the past nine months, Mr. Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, has emerged as the only truly transformative candidate in the race. In the crucible that is a presidential campaign, his intellect, his temperament and equanimity under pressure consistently have been impressive. He has surrounded himself with smart, capable advisers who have helped him refine thorough, nuanced policy positions.
In a word, Mr. Obama has been presidential.
...In making political endorsements, this editorial page is guided first by the principles espoused by Joseph Pulitzer in The Post-Dispatch Platform printed daily at the top of this page. Then we consider questions of character, life experience and intellect, as well as specific policy and issue positions. Each member of the editorial board weighs in.
On all counts, the consensus was clear: Barack Obama of Illinois should be the next president of the United States.
We didn’t know nine months ago that before Election Day, America would face its greatest economic challenge since the Great Depression. The crisis on Wall Street is devastating, but it has offered voters a useful preview of how the two presidential candidates would respond to a crisis.
Very early on, Mr. Obama reached out to his impressive corps of economic advisers and developed a comprehensive set of recommendations for addressing the problems. He set them forth calmly and explained them carefully.
...Mr. McCain first was elected to Congress in 1982 when Mr. Obama was in his senior year at Columbia University. Yet the younger man’s intellectual curiosity and capacity — and, yes, also the skills he developed as a community organizer and his instincts as a political conciliator — more than compensate for his lack of more traditional Washington experience.
A presidency is defined less by what happens in the Oval Office than by what is done by the more than 3,000 men and women the president appoints to government office. Only 600 of them are subject to Senate approval. The rest serve at the pleasure of the president.
We have little doubt that Mr. Obama’s appointees would bring a level of competence, compassion and intellectual achievement to the executive branch that hasn’t been seen since the New Frontier. He has energized a new generation of Americans who would put the concept of service back in “public service.”
...The idea that 3,000 bright, dedicated and accomplished Americans would be joining the Obama administration to serve the public — as opposed to padding their resumés or shilling for the corporate interests they’re sworn to oversee — is reassuring. That they would be serving a president who actually would listen to them is staggering.
And the fact that Mr. Obama can explain his thoughts and policies in language that can instruct and inspire is exciting. Eloquence isn’t everything in a president, but it is not nothing, either.
...He sees the complicated world as it is today, not as a binary division between us and them, but as a kaleidoscope of shifting alliances and interests. As he often notes, he is the son of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas, an internationalist who yet acknowledges that America is the only nation in the world in which someone of his distinctly modest background could rise as far as his talent, intellect and hard work would take him.
Given the damage that has been done to America’s moral standing in the world in the last eight years...Mr. Obama’s election would help America reclaim the moral high ground.
It also must be said that Mr. Obama is right on the issues. He was right on the war in Iraq. He is right that all Americans deserve access to health care and right in his pragmatic approach to meeting that goal. He is right on tax policy, infrastructure investment, energy policy and environmental issues. He is right on American ideals.
He was right when he said in his remarkable speech in March in Philadelphia that “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.”
| |
After Russell Tucker was laid off from his job at the GM plant in Kansas City this past summer, he was laying around the house when he found inspiration in the least likely of places:
“It was the middle of July when I got laid off. I was laying around the house when I saw the Democratic Convention on TV, and I recorded, it. I was so taken by Barack Obama’s speech, I watched it twice the next day. I had to find out some way to get involved. I found 31st and Gillham (an Obama volunteer headquarters), and I came up with a little thought -- with John McCain we hope for change, but with Barack Obama, we change for hope. So I changed, I got involved. This is the first election in which I’ve done any volunteering.”
Now this American Sheet Workers Union member works for the campaign full time, on a volunteer basis. He even traveled out of state last week, to canvas in Kansas. “That was interesting," Russell said. "I think we’re going to win Missouri, and I think maybe Kansas too.”
Here’s a clip of Joe fired up, speaking to Russell and 1100 other folks today in Liberty, Missouri:
| |
| Also listed in: Rural Americans for Obama |
On the Heartland for Change RV Tour, local leaders and surrogates who support Barack are traveling across states, stopping in towns - both large and small - to discuss the issues affecting rural voters. So far the tour has made stops in Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and is currently in Minnesota.
In Missouri, Governor Joe Maxwell, United States Senator Claire McCaskill, Missouri State Senators Wes Shoemyer, and J.C. Kuessner, Congressman Russ Carnahan and his sister, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan traveled around the state, visiting with Missourians and discussing how Barack will stand up for farmers and help strengthen the rural economy.
During the first day of the tour Senator McCaskill told voters...
Barack understands the importance of subsidies to the American farmer. Being the Senator from Illinois, he’s no stranger to these issues. This isn’t about hand outs; this is about leveling the playing field.
...We’re not just talking about investing in ethanol and maintaining subsidies. Senator Obama knows we need to shift our energy policy… Currently we consume twenty five percent of the world’s oil, but we only produce about three percent. Now I’m not a math major, but that just doesn’t add up to me. We need to invest in solar and wind technology as well. Become self reliant and generate our own energy here at home.
A lifelong Missouri farmer named David held an event on his farm in Rolla on the second day of the tour, inviting family and friends to join in the discussion. He shared his story and explained to others that Barack has fought for rural areas of Illinois during his time in the Senate and will continue to do so as president.
After the Rolla event, the tour traveled to Webster Groves, Festus, Cape Girardeau and ended in Sikeston.
On the third day, Governor Maxwell held an informal town hall event at which he discussed rural issues, especially the shrinking processing market, healthcare and the failure to enforce existing antitrust laws. He encouraged those involved to speak up and make their voice heard.
The Obama campaign wants to hear from you. This is your chance to shape the strategy of this campaign and the direction of this country.
The tour across Missouri ended outside of Springfield, where supporters spent the day discussing how to help elect Barack president and bring change to rural communities.
Here are the pictures from the Missouri tour...
UNION, Mo., July 30 -- Sen. Barack Obama campaigned through the conservative heart of rural Missouri on Wednesday, determined to prove that a Democrat can capture this bellwether state by winning over voters in its far-flung small towns as well as in its urban centers. read more here
BERLIN — Senator Barack Obama stood before a sea of cheering admirers on Thursday and sought to inspire fresh cooperation among American allies to defeat terrorism and other threats, introducing himself as a leader who could summon other nations to join the United States in confronting the world’s next challenges. read more here
----------
Click On Detroit
----------
The Denver Post
Reported by: Yehweon Nam
Posted by: Stephanie Stouffer
COLUMBIA - Presidential candidate Barack Obama is taking aim on the Show-Me state for his 2008 campaign.
Downtown Columbia is home to one of 23 new regional campaign offices in Missouri, more than twice as many as Republican candidate John McCain. read more here
----------
Posts
All Comments
Popeye became a Depression-era hero soon after he first appeared in the 1929 comic strip, Thimble Theatre. Segar drew Popeye as a “working-class Joe” who suffered torment from Bluto — sometimes known as Brutus — until he “can't stands it no more”. Wolfing down spinach turned Popeye into a pumped-up everyman hero, making the case for good over evil. source: Times UK
