POV III

Issue 3.

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John Edwards
Mark McKinnon
The 2008 Primary Season
Dennis Kucinich in Boston
A Dictator for Iraq?
Al Gore and the Nobel Prize
The WGA Strike
Behind the Target Label

We've got you covered.

Enjoy.

Power to Gravel

This is almost enough to make Mike Gravel the recipient of my first campaign donation as an 18 year old.

Power to the people, give him a chance.

Numbers I Like

Those would be two polls released the past week or so out of Iowa:






Obama's campaign press guy, Bill Burton, says it best: "There’s going to be a caucus and not just a coronation."

I wouldn't put up a fuss if Hillary were chosen as the eventual Democratic nominee, but months and months of 20%+ leads across this country for Ms. Clinton got me praying for the day Obama finally moved past her in a key state like Iowa.

Today's my lucky day.

Iowa caucus night is quietly gearing up to be a fight to remember...so much so that flying out to Des Moines for some holiday season political action might just sneak onto my list of New Year's resolutions.

Oh, and a second (or first) place finish in Iowa for Huckabee would put a smile on my face too.

Edward's Increasing Irrelevance

Hat tip to The Atlantic Monthly for their remarkable profile of Barack Obama this month.

Andrew Sullivan says it all:

"At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war--not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade--but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war--and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama--and Obama alone--offers the possibility of a truce."

Wasn't ending that war John Edwards' goal for so long?

It still is, but it sometimes seems as if Edwards has only seen from the outside what Obama was involved with in Chicago for over a decade, and he only seeks to end the conflict through his politics of ending poverty and strengthening middle class families.


There are reasons to admire Edwards, but Obama is running a more complete campaign now. Not only is the junior Senator in his 40's inspiring a generation of young political activists, but he's establishing credibility for himself by showing that a wide set of reforms (energy independence, education, health care, Social Security reform, etc.) can add up to fixing the economic and social problems in this country.

Is Obama the best out there? Who knows. But is John Edwards increasingly irrelevant? Yes. Sadly.


(photo credit: © 2007 by Luke N. Vargas. All Rights Reserved.)

Here We Come

This event only happens three times a year, so it's rather a big deal.

The Fall '07 Issue of the POV Magazine -- the high school political magazine -- will be released this coming Wednesday.

Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Politics....student-style.


www.bbnpov.com will have you covered for a nice little digital download when the time comes.

New Money, New Design, Same Message

Ron Paul's message of preserving the Constitution's protection of American independence, and personal liberty has been the backbone of his campaign from the start. What Paul didn't always have was piles of money which he could use to help spread his message across the traditional broadcast media (he long ago conquered the internet).

According to his website, Ron Paul's campaign raked in more than $3.8 million in a volunteer-led initiative to flood his campaign with donations on November 5th.

There's no doubt that that rate of fundraising can't be sustained, but that doesn't mean Paul won't be able to bring in larger dollar amounts than a number of his competitors in the Republican and Democratic fields.

In the past 10 minutes alone--almost 1 A.M. EST--Paul's website reports taking in more than $10,100.

Besides print and television advertising campaigns, what is all this money being put towards?


For one, it seems Ron Paul is following the lead of Democrat Barack Obama in promoting some flashy public events in major American cities complete with musical guests. Not only is the idea of massive, visually-impressive rallies a page out of the Obama book, but it looks as if Ron Paul hired Obama's poster designer to promote his upcoming event in Philadelphia.


Keep it up Ron, you've earned the right to play with the big boys.

Another Govt. Paper (And a Candidate that's Growing on Me)

Phew.

That was the second weekend in a row with an AP U.S. Government essay. Thankfully this one was a free topic, which, of course, was an opportunity to let the crazy and twisting commentary on modern politics flow.

So what came of it?

Nothing more than my favorite topic for political discussion, "Is Barack Obama a sincere leader for change, or does his magnificent way with words hide his true (and less pure) character and intentions?"

Plato's The Republic offers many answers, but it is the quote below that starts to change the way I see the junior Senator:


“young men, after their first taste of argument, are always contradicting people just for the fun of it; they imitate those whom they hear cross-examining each other” (539b)


Obama, in his mid-forties, is still a relative newcomer to national politics, and might as well be the young man in Plato's situation. What currently impresses me about Obama is that, after entering the political spotlight as a spotless messiah of change and hope and subsequently appearing to sell himself out to fundraisers like Oprah Winfrey and stagnating with an increasingly banal and insubstantial campaign message this summer, Obama is back again. Even better, he's not playing the game of argument because everyone else is.

Plato would be proud.


The electricity of events like Obama's rally in Boston with Governor Deval Patrick aren't enough to sell me on any one candidate, rather it is Obama's ability to roll out bold and practical positions on issues like energy independence or to face the problem of Social Security head-on that reveals the kind of change he really wants for this country.

Is this an endorsement? Far from it, but Obama is moving in the right direction--he is refining his ability to put pressure on his opponents without abandoning the "politics of hope," and he's showing what it takes to successfully defend himself from the attacks of others.

Hillary Clinton may look like she is running away with the Democratic nomination for now, but Obama is gradually up-ticking in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Keeping up with Hillary is no easy task, but if there's a candidate out there to dethrone Clinton right now, it's Obama.

We'll see how far he goes.


(photo credit: © 2007 by Luke N. Vargas. All Rights Reserved.)