More ultra-right media chatter

Un-American:
Have you listened to the right-wing media lately?
Columbia Journalism Review
By Michael Massing

In the weeks following the election, the debate over the issue of media bias, and of whether the press was overly kind to Barack Obama, has continued to swirl. Much less attention has been paid to another, more troubling aspect of the coverage, and that’s the relentless and malevolent campaign that the right-wing media waged against the Democratic candidate. Few people who did not regularly tune in to the vast, churning combine of bellowing radio hosts, yapping bloggers, obnoxious Web sites, malicious columnists, and the slashingly partisan Fox News have any idea of just how vile and venomous were the attacks leveled at Obama. Day after day, week after week, these outlets worked determinedly to discredit and degrade Obama, accusing him of being a Muslim, a Marxist, a radical, a revolutionary, a socialist, a communist, a thug, a mobster, a racist, an agent of voter fraud, a black-power advocate, a madrasah graduate, an anti-Semite, an enemy of Israel, an associate of terrorists—even the Antichrist. Supplemented by a flood of viral e-mails, slanderous robocalls, and Internet-based smear campaigns, these media outlets worked to stoke firestorms of manufactured rage against Obama and the Democrats in what was perhaps the most concerted campaign of vilification ever directed at an American politician.

In light of Obama’s victory, one might be tempted to let it all pass. That would be a mistake. For the effects of that campaign remain with us. What’s more, the campaign itself is still going on.

Read the whole article here...

Obama Campaign Reaches Out to LGBT Community

"None of us will tolerate one more minute of the Bush administration, which is what McCain represents. There's too much at stake," Birch added. She said that ultimately the LGBT community would be united behind Obama to "win our country and, in many ways, our planet back."

Read the whole story here...

Live in Philly

By Tim Wheeler

PHILADELPHIA— With polls showing the gap between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama narrowing to single digits, the rival Democratic presidential candidates barnstormed across the state and volunteers went door-to-door to turn out voters in the crucial April 22 primary.

Obama fired up 38,000 supporters during an April 18 rally at Independence Mall in downtown Philadelphia. Thousands in the crowd wore the purple T shirts of the Service Employees International Union or waved “Teamsters for Obama” signs. “This election is our chance to declare our independence from the broken politics of Washington,” Obama told the cheering crowd. “No matter who we are supporting in this primary campaign, the one thing we know for sure is that the change the country needs will not come from a third George W. Bush term. And that is exactly what John McCain is offering…four more years of a war with no exit strategy, no end in sight, that’s sending our troops on their third, fourth, and fifth tours of duty….four more years of tax cuts for CEOs and corporations...”

So far this year, he added, 8,300 Pennsylvanians and 232,000 others have lost their jobs, millions are losing their homes in foreclosure and millions more are without health insurance or pensions. “I don’t think we can afford four more years of George Bush and John McCain’s ideas of economic progress. Its time to turn the page.”

Clinton is a politician who openly boasts that she can wheel and deal with the corporate lobbyists in Washington, Obama said. “I’m not running to be the president who plays the same old Washington games,” he thundered. “I’m running to end the game playing in Washington…I don’t believe we can take on the lobbyists if we keep taking their money….It will take a movement like we’ve built in this campaign…to change this country.”

Hundreds of Obama volunteers worked from a network of regional offices across the state. Connecticut volunteers worked the mostly Polish-American neighborhood of Port Richmond in Philadelphia. “We ran into a group of Hillary Clinton’s volunteers, members of the Communications Workers of America,” one New Haven volunteer told the PWW. “We had a wonderful talk with them. We refused to argue with each other and put our focus on the need to defeat McCain in November,” she said.

This reporter tagged along with a bus load of volunteers from Baltimore who fanned out east and west of Broad Street near Temple University. “You are in Obama territory,” said Gabe Gonzales. He urged those fluent in Spanish to step forward to work in Latino neighborhoods. “Philadelphia is fired up. This is a movement not just an election campaign.”

Gonzales decried Clinton’s attempt to exploit Obama’s use of the word “bitter,” to describe the anger of workers hit by plant closings. “I’m from Gary, I’ve lived through the plant shutdowns. I saw what it did to workers in my town. Bitter doesn’t begin to express how we feel. I’m pissed.”

At the other end of the state, Obama and Clinton spoke separately to an April 14 meeting of 2,000 steelworkers in Pittsburgh jointly sponsored by the United Steelworkers and a number of steel corporations. Obama got a standing ovation when he announced that if elected he will sign the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) making it easier for workers to join unions. He stressed the role of organized labor in providing higher wages and benefits in helping pull the nation out of recession.

While she did not mention it in her speech, Clinton, too, has endorsed the EFCA. She focused on “green jobs” to restore manufacturing. But when she dredged up Obama’s “bitter” comment the crowd booed. One woman worker shouted, “Your damn right. They took everything.”

Carl Davidson who lives near Aliquippa, PA. among the hardest hit by the shutdown of steel mills in Western PA. is active in Progressives For Obama, an offshoot of Progressive Democrats of America. “Obama has a very good shot at defeating McCain in November,” Davidson told the World in a phone interview. “If we can get a large number of voters under the age of forty to the polls, that will be critical to his victory.” He blasted Bill and Hillary Clinton for “playing the race card” and negative campaigning. “The racebaiting and redbaiting is really vicious. Hillary is really getting down to the bottom of the barrel.”

The negative campaigning has not produced any swing to her among Democratic superdelegates. Even with a narrow win here, Obama still holds an insurmountable lead in delegates.

Democratic Party National Chairman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others are calling on superdelegates to announce their preferance by the end of June. Donna Brazile, an uncommitted superdelegate told the Wall Street Journal, “There’s a group around (Sen. Clinton) that really wants to take the fight to the convention. They don’t care about the Party. It scares me and that’s what scares a lot of superdelegates.”

"Ready for change" in South Carolina

By Tim Wheeler, national political correspondent, People's Weekly World

Columbia, S.C.- Barack Obama delivered a powerful answer to those who dismiss his message of hope and change last night drawing thunderous cheers from an overflow crowd that packed the Ira and Nancy Koger Center for the Arts at the University of South Carolina.

Without mentioning Bill Clinton by name, Obama referred to the former president's dismissive comment that Obama is spreading a "fairy tale," that he is too young and naive to be president.

Those who counsel the people to be patient do not understand "the fierce urgency of now," Obama said, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King's argument against gradualism.

"There is such a thing as being too late," he said. He reminded the crowd that the nation is locked in the Iraq war, people are working longer hours and earning less, seniors have lost pensions and cannot retire, the healthcare system is "broken" and "we're on the brink of a recession."

"We cannot afford to wait," he said. "We cannot wait to end the war in Iraq and bring the troops home," he said. "We need a different politics based not on tearing each other down but building America up." Enormous crowds are greeting him all across the U.S. and South Carolina he said, attracted by that message of hope.

"Whatever else happens, next November the name George W. Bush will not be on the ballot." A roar went up and the crowd chanted, "No Bush! No Bush!"

He called for raising the minimum wage each year to offset inflation, health care for all, more money for schools than is spent for jails, making college affordable for all youth, and a change in U.S. foreign policy.

He vowed to "use our military wisely and that is why I opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning. I will end the war but also end the mindset that got us into this war."

He quoted President John Kennedy's admonition "never fear to negotiate" and promised to negotiate with both friend and foe.

All the candidates are now talking about "change," he said. "But change is not easy. Change is hard." Pharmaceutical corporations and oil companies "are not going to give up easily," he warned.

Already, they are attacking him, he said, spreading the word, "Obama can't be president right now. We have to slow him a little bit more, boil the hope out of him." Anonymous e-mails falsely report that he is a "Muslim."

"They want to preserve the status quo by feeding on fear," he charged.

Others say Obama "has his head in the clouds. He's a hopemonger," he said.

But the American people have always "defied the odds" and chose hope over fear and cynicism: waging the War for Independence against the British Empire, abolitionists who fought to end slavery, workers who pushed through the New Deal in the 1930s, joining the worldwide movement that defeated Hitler fascism.

"Hope is not blind optimism," he said. "I know how hard it will be to reform our health care system. I know because I have fought on the streets as an organizer."

He cited the courage of youth of all races in the 1960s who braved the fire hoses, clubs, and police dogs, some of them dying, to bring down the system of segregation.

"That's what hope is," he said."I can't do it without you. I am ready for change. But you've got to be ready for change as well. If we are ready for change, then the days of the lobbyists running Washington will be over. We can make an economy that works for all Americans, that works for mainstreet not Wall Street."

The crowd chanted, "Ready for change!"

[See Wheeler's earlier posts here and here.]

Live Blogging from South Carolina

By Tim Wheeler, national political correspondent, People's Weekly World

Columbia, S.C.- Its primary election day here in South Carolina and the army of volunteers who have flooded into the state to campaign for Barack Obama have already left the YMCA and fanned out to polling places across this city.

It is chilly and threatening rain but the media is predicting a record voter turnout of people fired up by Obama's message of hope. I rode down from Baltimore on a bus with 40 other volunteers. It was chartered by three members of the Maryland General Assembly who have kept us working diligently since we arrived. Nights we sleep on the gymnasium floor of the Y, strewn with mostly youthful volunteers from as far away as California. Early this morning two more busloads arrived from Washington, D.C.

I have been canvassing with a friend, Rev. Pierre Williams, a United Methodist minister in Baltimore. We got a vivid feel for just how deeply Obama's message is resonating here going door-to-door in a working class neighborhood yesterday.

Sherman Stewart, employed as a maintenance worker at the Governor's Mansion here in the state capital told us, "I've been listening to all the candidates and I feel that Barack Obama is the one who can turn this country around.Everyone is feeling the insecurity from the way the economy is going. Veterans of the Iraq war are coming home and finding out their credit is all messed up, their health care is messed up. We're spending billions upon billions over there in Iraq, preaching democracy to the world, and we have millions of children here who are hungry and without health care.I'm getting ready to retire and there are so many people losing their pensions, or can't afford their medicine."

Richard Edwards came walking by. He is a student at Midlands Technical College and a U.S. Navy veteran. He deplored former President Bill Clinton's divisive statements here in South Carolina such as his dismissive statement that Obama's message of hope is a "fairy tale," implying that the Illinois Senator is too young and inexperienced to be president.

"I think Clinton's statement really affected Black voters," he told the World. "It put the Black community in a negative light. Obama is trying to unite people of all races and backgrounds, young and old, men and women. Clinton's statement has divided South Carolina. We don't need that here. I believe Barack is going to win but by a narrower margin. I hope Barack sticks to his message, positive change, hope, bringing us together, Black, white independent, even Republicans."

Clinton's Race-Based Tactics May Backfire

By Joe Sims

I was on the road Monday night and couldn’t watch the now famous slugfest between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton. So Tuesday morning I asked a friend and an astute observer how it went. He told me, “I turned it off. Couldn’t take it.” I’m reminded of that tonight when reading about yet another Democratic Party regular taking on Bill Clinton, for his destructive and divisive role in the primaries.

CNN reported it. Here’s what they said:

“In an interview with CNN, Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party and an Obama backer, said some of Clinton's recent remarks on the campaign trail were appeals based on race and gender, meant to "suppress the vote, demoralize voters and distort the record."

Harpootlian said the remarks were "reminiscent of Lee Atwater," a hard-hitting Republican strategist who worked for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and whose tactics were reviled by many Democrats.”

Many men and women of good heart will turn off and tune out. And there the danger lies.

President Clinton response to reporter who asked about the charge was a five-minute harangue, most of which was spent hiding behind John Lewis, Andy Young and Dolores Huerta (which itself is another story). The rest of the time, Clinton was bashing the reporters for daring to ask the question.

It made me think, what is Bill’s role, now that Senator Clinton is campaigning in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California. My suspicion is that Harpootlian has it right. To put it another way: create a colossal diversion, dominate the airways, keep Obama off focus, and turn potential voters off.

So much for the themes of unity and uplift. The Republicans strategists must be having a field day planning for the general election; the Clinton’s attack strategy proving a manual in the art of war. And who was it that thought that anyone would have difficulty running against a Black candidate and playing the race card well? The Clinton’s are proving themselves yet again past masters.

They should not however underestimate the reaction in the Black community. Many are furious, as well they should be. The Clinton’s short-term victory may be a long-term loss, if a less than enthusiastic Black electorate does not turn out to vote in November in large numbers. It could even severely damage the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile Obama is ahead in South Carolina. But they said that in New Hampshire. The numbers below were provided by the Daily Kos:

Amid stories that Clinton will refocus away from SC and look toward other states, today's Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby tracking poll released on Wednesday has Obama leading Clinton 43 percent to 25 (Edwards is at 15), pretty much matching every other recent poll including today's PPP automated poll (Obama 44, Clinton 28, Edwards 15).

Of note from Zogby:

More than half of the Democratic primary voters in South Carolina are expected to be black. Obama, an Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, leads among African-Americans by 65 percent to 16 percent...

[Zogby] said the race in South Carolina still showed some fluidity. About 14 percent of voters in the state are undecided, and about 20 percent of voters backing a candidate say they could still change their mind.

Only one night of polling was done post-debate.

Kucinich Campaign Needs Your Help

For all those people who blame the big media and the Democratic Party leadership for holding Rep. Dennis Kucinich back and not letting him get his message out, this is the perfect opportunity to make a difference. Rep. Kucinich was kept out of the latest Iowa debate because he did not have staff in Iowa by a certain deadline. Now that may seem like an arbitrary rule, but the plain fact is that if you don't have people staffing your campaign somewhere, it suggests you don't really have a lot of support, so why should you be in a debate? So to everyone in the northeast who thinks that is just plain wrong, check out the following from the Kucinich for President Campaign:

We need volunteers in New Hampshire

Working on a presidential campaign is always exciting; whether working locally or traveling to another state.

We're asking people from all walks of life to come together in New Hampshire and help the volunteers already working here to elect Dennis Kucinich as the next President of the United States. We need you.

This is even more exciting because Dennis will be in New Hampshire with you, meeting people in town halls, going door to door to introduce himself, asking voters to take part in the First in the Nation Primary and reminding people a vote for principles is always a vote that counts, and making his presence known at polling stations across the state.

There are lots of jobs that need to be done, some of this work you may already be doing, some of it may be new and we have experienced leaders in the field who welcome your presence. To all those who can come to New Hampshire we'll provide lodging.

Your presence can make a difference in New Hampshire and news of that difference will spread across the nation on January 9th, 2008 and make a difference for the entire nation!

To find out more, or to sign up now please contact:
Amanda Harrow at 603-792-0053 or amanda.harrow@kucinich.us

Strength through Peace
Kucinich for President Campaign