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Obama touts non-political résumé

We need fresh ideas in the White House, and voters in 2008 will respond to Barack Obama's outsider message.

by Judy Keen - USA Today:

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who will announce Saturday that he's running for the Democratic presidential nomination, says the brevity of his political résumé is his "greatest strength."

His work as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, constitutional law professor and state legislator "provides me with insights into solving problems at the federal level and at the local level and at the neighborhood level," Obama said in an interview with USA TODAY. That experience "is what's needed right now," he said.

Obama, 45, has been in the U.S. Senate for two years and served seven years in the Illinois Senate.

Obama also said:

•He and his wife, Michelle, worry about losing privacy. "We tend to be pretty private people, we don't like a lot of fuss," he said. "What I dread most is being away from my kids" - daughters Malia, 8, and Sasha, 5.

He'll make that sacrifice, he said, because he believes he can bring "people together to find common-sense, practical solutions" to economic, health care, education, energy and security problems.

•Although he would be the first African-American president, race is not "the main focus" of his campaign. If there are "symbolic benefits from it, that's great," he said.

•He hopes to generate "the kind of enthusiasm and interest" that motivates many people to make $5 or $10 donations online.

•He doesn't wake up every day certain he'll win. "I am absolutely convinced that …we've got a message that I think will appeal to the American people."

Obama confronts ‘outsider’ dilemma

You gotta love that Sen. Obama's team would would rather lose than change the candidate for political expediency.  Obama is a principled leader, and he doesn't formulate his polices based on focuse groups and tracking polls.  If the country doesn't like Obama, so be it.  But at least we know that no matter what the future holds, he will remain genunine and true to his word.

by Anne E. Kornblut - Washington Post:

In the nearly three weeks since Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made his unofficial debut as a presidential candidate, his senior advisers have been holed up in a temporary office on Connecticut Avenue NW, feverishly working to translate the huge excitement about his candidacy into a political strategy.

For all the buzz about his running, Obama did not enter the race with the conventional weapons of a presidential candidate -- a deep database of donors, a tactical road map for winning primaries or even a sign marking the entrance to his ad hoc campaign headquarters. Obama is only now starting to build a political infrastructure that matches his growing support.

But the challenge for Obama is not just assembling the nuts and bolts of a national campaign on the fly. He must, his advisers believe, do so in a way that reflects the distinct, next-generation message of his candidacy, or at least avoids making him look like every other politician in the race. "I would sooner lose the race than lose having him the way he is," said David Axelrod, his chief media strategist.

In diverse Honolulu, young Obama was part of a multiethnic existence

I've never been to Hawaii, but it sure sounds like a great place to grow up.

by Brian Charlton - Associated Press:

 He was known as Barry Obama, and with his dark complexion and mini-Afro, he was one of the few blacks at the privileged Hawaiian school overlooking the Pacific.

Yet that hardly made him stand out.

Diversity was the norm at the Punahou School, one of the state's top private schools. The 3,600 students came from a wide variety of backgrounds, with a blend of Polynesian, Asian, European and other cultures. Everybody in Hawaii is a minority.

At Punahou, Barack Obama was known primarily for his appealing personality, his honesty and his aggressive play on the basketball court.

"It was a good melting pot. There were people from all different races," said Eric Smith, a friend and classmate of Obama's in the 1970s. "Everyone seemed to meld together."

As he pursues the presidency, the chapters of Obama's unfamiliar biography are drawing greater scrutiny. The Democratic senator from Illinois was born in Honolulu 45 years ago and lived in one the country's most diverse metropolitan areas for the better part of 18 years. He spent four childhood years in Indonesia.

In his 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father," Obama recalls experiencing some discrimination growing up in the islands, such as when other kids laughed at his name. He also wrote about his internal struggles as black friends would accuse all white people of mistreating others - harsh words as Obama was being raised by his white mother and grandparents.

"I tried to raise myself to be a black man in America, and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant," he wrote.

But Obama acknowledges he wasn't growing up in the Jim Crow South or the housing projects of Harlem - he was in Hawaii, where his peers mostly treated him the same as others.

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Learn more about Sen. Obama

Don't believe the hype. 

Find out for yourself who Sen. Obama really is. 

Wikipedia - Barack Obama.

Sen. Barack Obama tries to flesh out his record with an election-fraud bill

Sen. Obama continues to use his political capital to move the progressive football down the field.

From The Hill:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) yesterday added election fraud to the spectrum of weighty issues he has covered since informally launching his presidential bid, further fleshing out a legislative record that could be an inviting target in the intensifying 2008 campaign.

Obama sought to stay focused on his bill criminalizing voter suppression and deceptive electoral tactics, his third momentum-building effort in two weeks, even as the Republican National Committee drove a wedge through the Democratic field by circulating critical comments made by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) about his fellow White House hopefuls.

“I don’t spend too much time worrying about what folks talk about during campaign season,” Obama said yesterday.

Yet he has embraced several politically charged debates this winter, signaling his readiness to compete in the media glare of the primary trail and his ability to project presidential gravitas while displaying Democratic bona fides.

Yesterday’s voter-deception bill, which would allow injunctive relief for individuals targeted by fraudulent flyers and automated phone calls during the run-up to Election Day, earned plaudits from civil-rights groups and the co-sponsorship of Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the Democratic Caucus’s No. 3 and a backer of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in 2008.

Obama acknowledged the greater megaphone he commands as a presidential contender, observing that the Democrats’ new majority status also allows him to expand his legislative reach with some confidence of floor time and success.

In Law School, Obama Found Political Voice

Sen. Obama's rise from a humble community organizer to the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review is a fascinating story.  In the process, Obama focused his efforts on listening to others and encouraging debate.  Wouldn't that be a refreshing change from the stubborn, dogmatic approach displayed by our current president?

From the New York Times:

The peers who elected Barack Obama as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review say he was a natural leader, an impressive student, a nice guy.

In his two memoirs and the biographical video on his Web site, Senator Obama’s legal education is barely a blip, one of the least known chapters of his life. But for the Illinois Democrat who is all but certainly running for the presidency, Harvard was the place where he first became a political sensation.

He arrived there as an unknown, Afro-wearing community organizer who had spent years searching for his identity; by the time he left, he had his first national news media exposure, a book contract and a shot of confidence from running the most powerful legal journal in the country.

He proved deft at navigating an institution scorched with ideological battles, many of which revolved around race. He developed a leadership style based more on furthering consensus than on imposing his own ideas. Surrounded by students who enjoyed the sound of their own voices, Mr. Obama cast himself as an eager listener, sometimes giving warring classmates the impression that he agreed with all of them at once.

Early on, Obama showed talent for bridging divisions

All of us who've ready Sen. Obama's book know this story.  Obama's election as the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review was just a sign of great things to come.

From the LA Times:

Barack Obama's entry into politics came on a winter morning at the white-columned Harvard Law Review building when, about 2 a.m., a deeply divided editorial staff chose him as the first African American to lead the prestigious publication.

It was no small accomplishment. Obama, who at nearly 30 was older and more world-wise than most of his classmates, had to navigate among sharply drawn factions of conservatives and liberals to beat 18 other candidates for the job.

Today, Obama's weighing of a bid for the White House has provoked questions about whether he has the experience to build a winning coalition of voters. But at Harvard Law Review he showed that — on a much smaller scale — he had the savvy to maneuver through turbulent political waters.

Is Obama really too green, or are boomers mislabeling him?

The experience critique of Sen. Obama is lame.  Abe Lincoln and JFK didn't have much "experience", and they turned out allright.  Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld had lots of experience, and they were awful.

Young people across the country, and especially in Texas, are coming out in droves to hear Obama speak.  But for whatever reason, Baby Boomers seem inclined to claim that Obama, who was born at the end of the baby boom, is too young.  This nationally syndicated column from Ellen Goodman explores this mystery.

From Ellen Goodman:

Albert Einstein published the big theory of relativity at 36. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence at 33. It begins to occur to you that you will never be a prodigy or the youngest anything, not even the youngest president of the United States. Teddy Roosevelt had that sewed up at 42.

But I find it bewildering to hear so many Americans worrying that a man who is middle-aged, by any demographic measure, might be too young. The question — "how green is Obama?" — may say less about the senator's youth than the country's age. Or the baby boomers aging.

In 1960, the average age of Americans was 29. Today it's 36 and climbing. In 1960, the life expectancy was 69. Now it's 77. More to the point, the baby-boom generation that is forever setting the agenda has begun turning 60.

Most of the green-talk is indeed from boomers, a generation that was just coming of age — teen-age — when Jack Kennedy was killed at 46. Is it possible that the same generation that famously didn't trust anybody over 30 when they were 20 doesn't trust anybody under 50 now that they are turning 60?

One of the charms of the boomers, the watermelon in the demographic python, is how they are managing to age without getting old.

But the side effect of feeling forever young is that boomers may regard their juniors as perennially too young. It's seen in the generational lament about the adult children who can't get launched. It's also seen in the boomers' defense of their (primary) place in the pecking order.

Defending Sen. Obama with solid talking points

This is an excellent post on Burnt Orange Report by PI Lawyer.  Whenever you're defending your support of Sen. Obama to various skeptics, be sure to have some of these following points memorized. 

The great irony is lots of folks right now are curious about Obama, and the more they learn about the him, the more they will like him.  The skepticism will brew curiosity which will brew grassroots support.  The hopeful and inspiring story of Barack Obama gets better with each new chapter, so if you haven't read his two books yet, then do yourself a favor.  Many of the questions that Obama skeptics often ask can be answered in the books.  Obama isn't hiding anything, and he doesn't represent business-as-usual DC thinking.  He's an open book, and he's laying all his skeletons on the beach, bleaching in the sun.   He's made mistakes, and he's learned from them.  He has the ability get people working together to get results.  He isn't overly-ideological, he's practical.  This is a refreshing change from our current administration that stubbornly refuses to admit that Iraq was a mistake.

Obama's not a temporary "shooting star", as the Clinton camp claims.  Instead, he's quickly demonstrating that he possesses enough depth, intelligence and charisma to lead our nation.

Oh the irony...

It is slightly ironic that all those who worry about Professor Obama being a creation of the media are parroting a skeptical line created by that media itself.  The "What will he do when the polish comes off" or "He doesn't have any experience" whispers have gotten most of their play precisely because of the punditocracy.  I think a lot of people's concerns are definitely worth exploring, but we should also remember that there is almost no narrative that isn't encouraged by the media itself. I think that if you look closely, there is plenty of data to answer concerns over Professor Obama.  First of all, his oratory is more than a matter of charisma.  Obama is one of the few politicians today who actually writes a lot of his own speeches.  He authored a well-reviewed book years before he entered the political scene, and his latest book drew praise from the tough NY Times critic Michiko Kakutani.  Writing well is a reflection of intelligence that goes beyond merely speaking well. Second, people seem to forget that he has had quite an accomplished career prior to the US Senate.  At UChicago, many of my professors and classmates, including the famously conservative Federalist Society types, spoke in glowing terms of Professor Obama's intelligence and detailed knowledge of law and policy.  His classes were among the most popular at the law school.  As a young man, Obama led numerous successful community organizing efforts on Chicago's Southside.  And as I mentioned in my other comment on the Obama announcement yesterday, as a State Senator, Obama authored and passed numerous pieces of landmark, progressive legislation, including a huge expansion of CHIP, a state Earned Income Tax Credit, a bill requiring the collection of racial statistics in all police stops, and a bill requiring the videotaping of all murder interrogations.  The last of these he negotiated a unanimous passage through a closely divided State Senate, and along the way, he convinced police organizations and state prosecutors originally opposed to the legislation to come out in support of it.  He also once convinced the NRA to switch positions publicly from opposition to endorsement of a bill.  He also worked closely with the team that crafted the death penalty moratorium bill, and authored a bill to publicly finance judicial elections. If you talk with anyone in Illinois politics, they'll tell you that Professor Obama had an uncanny ability to sit down and discuss an issue so thoroughly, reasonably, and intelligently that numerous opponents would come out of meetings with him wondering how they could have ever opposed him.  If anyone has had the chance to sit and talk with him about the issues, you know that his grasp of policy detail is astonishing.  You can't be a law professor at a school such as UChicago without being able to hold your own in daily policy and legal debates with the likes of Richard Posner, Richard Epstein, Cass Sunstein, and Geoff Stone. In short, before Obama was the media darling of today, he was already well-known as the brainy, thoughtful, and astoundingly persuasive liberal scholar-statesman of Illinois.  When we were gathering petition signatures for Obama and he was third or fourth in all the polls, everyone acknowledged he was easily the most qualified, but many worried he couldn't defeat money and the machine.  As people got to know him, though, the enthusiasm for him grew, not because the media loved Obama in February of 2004, but because you can't meet with Obama without seeing leadership.  He would say tough, honest things in response to questions, answers the questioner didn't want to hear, and yet people would say afterwards that they thought of him as a true leader because he didn't pander to them. Finally, I think Obama understands the dangers of failing to plan for the worst in politics.  Remember that he bounced back from a brutal drubbing in his primary challenge to US Congressman Bobby Rush to win the Senate; Professor Obama often talks about the lessons he learned from that experience. So lack of experience?  No substance?  By 2008, Obama will have had over 10 years experience as a state and federal legislator, a substantial academic career at one of the most scholarly productive law schools in the country, experience as a grassroots community organizer, and experience as a practicing civil rights attorney.  His policy positions on issues from civil rights to government reform to fiscal matters are well-known and consistent. Of course I worry about the tough fight ahead.  But if it's a choice between a less perfect candidate with more well-known flaws and one of the most inspiring candidates the Democrats have had in decades with less publicized faults, I'd much rather fight for the latter then settle for the former. "In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican." – H.L. Mencken

by: PI Lawyer @ Wed Jan 17, 2007 at 15:19:29 PM CST

Barack Obama can be whatever he wants to be

I normally don't agree with conservative hack Dick Morris, but he actually wrote a logical op-ed for The Hill. 

Those who deride Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) lack of experience and criticize the broad generalities and banalities that festoon his best-selling book miss the key point: His inexperience is an asset because he enters national politics as a blank canvas on which he can paint whatever he chooses. With only two years in the Senate, he is less like a politician running for president than like a general — think Eisenhower in 1952 or even the abortive candidacy of Colin Powell in 1995 — or a businessman, like Ross Perot in 1992.

It’s not that he doesn’t have a record. It’s that the record doesn’t really matter because it is so short. His Senate tenure is so abbreviated that he can be whatever he says he is, not just as a political contrivance to get elected, but genuinely to articulate a philosophy and make it his guiding principle both while seeking office and serving in it.

Obama has the opportunity to embody the emerging consensus, a broad national agreement reached from observation of trial and error over the past half decade. The bloody futility of our efforts to build a nation in Iraq have left us still committed to aggressive efforts to hunt down terrorists but determined to extricate ourselves from the mire. The effectiveness of our homeland security efforts and our concomitant horror at instances of mistaken imprisonment and unnecessarily intrusive government investigations have led us to demand a balance between aggressive investigation and protection of civil liberties. We want terrorists caught, interrogated, and locked up, but not tortured or sadistically humiliated.

Obama’s book reflects an intuitive grasp of this emerging consensus even if his voting record does not signal his agreement with it.

So we wait for Barack Obama to define himself. If he runs to the left, he will be a worthy successor to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. If he runs to the center, he might be a successor to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He might just make it to the White House.