Wow. What’s kind of creeping me out is how topical the political interpretations of the original The Wizard of Oz are.
The Tin Man represents American industry paralyzed by rising oil prices. (In the original context of the 1890s, L. Frank Baum was a vocal critic of Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller.) The flying monkeys may represent immigrants, people-of-color. (In the original context of the 1890s, they may allude to Chinese immigrants on the West Coast, or the retreating Native American peoples of the West.) Gregory Maguire makes this even more explicit by casting the Animals as a persecuted minority whose civil rights are being taken away.
I understand John McCain likes games of chance, and I guess selecting Sarah Palin is his way of saying “jacta alea est.” Statistically speaking, McCain’s chance of mortality—even though ostensibly, he is at the peak of health for his age—is significant. So what this might suggest is that the Republicans are actually willing to elect a woman to the presidency. While I disagree with just about everything she stands for, that’s kind of impressive. I didn’t think it would happen in my lifetime, that the party that has been trying its damndest to preserve patriarchy and has at times even openly professed misogyny would actually allow even the slightest possibility that a woman would lead our nation.
Now, I don’t think I need to defend Obama in terms of the “inexperience” charge. You don’t have to be a doddering old geezer who doesn’t know how to use a computer to be experienced, and you can get a lot of leadership experience without ever having to be in politics. Just the bare outline of Obama’s career path makes me confident that we’ve got somehow who knows how to take charge. Community organizer. Law professor. State senator. U.S. Senator. I mean, that’s a lot of years of leadership, even if his political career only started less than a decade ago.
And clearly, this is far more experience than Palin’s scant two years of governing Alaska, the state with the smallest population in the nation. And those two years are already tainted with allegations of abuse of power, too.
But I found this e-mail from moveon.org informative:
Who is Sarah Palin? Here’s some basic background:
- She was elected Alaska’s governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.
- Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.
”McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate” NARAL Pro-Choice America. 29 Aug 2008. - She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000.
Hayes, Christopher. ”Sarah Palin, Buchananite” The Nation. 29 Aug 2008. - Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.
Kizzia, Tom. ”‘Creation science’ enters the race” Anchorage Daily News. 27 Oct 2006. - She’s doesn’t think humans are the cause of climate change.
Grandia, Kevin. ”Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science” Huffington Post. 29 Aug 2008. - She’s solidly in line with John McCain’s “Big Oil first” energy policy. She’s pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won’t be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.
Sierra Club Political Committee. ”McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy” Yubanet.com. 29 Aug 2008.
McNeil, Joshua. ”Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past” League of Conservation Voters. 29 Aug 2008.
Reid, Tim. ”Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor.” The Times of London. 23 May 2008. - How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.
Murray, Mark. ”McCain met Palin once before yesterday” MSNBC. 29 Aug 2008
I can only speculate as to the reasons why McCain picked Palin. Certainly she appeases the Christian fundamentalists (except for the double-X chromosome, probably), and she upholds a lot of ultraconservative values. But if it was to try and pick up the vote of Hillary Clinton’s supporters, there’s a good chance it could backfire terribly. I spoke with my boss, who was a big-time HRC supporter but is now actually excited about Obama’s candidacy, and she basically felt insulted and patronized by McCain’s choice. Palin is like the anti-Clinton. There’s no way in hell any sane Democrat would find her appealing.
The foreign policy experience thing is huge. For one thing, McCain himself has no clue about what’s going on in the world. He has repeatedly confused Sunnis with Shias. He once stated that Al Qaeda was linked to Iran. (That is just completely nuts, like saying the Black Panthers were teaming up with the KKK.) He jokes around about bombing the hell out of Iran. And while he wants us to occupy Iraq for 100 years, which we invaded for no sane reason, he chastises Russia for pre-emptively invading Georgia in their attempt to “liberate” South Ossetia. (Pot, meet kettle.) So on the Republican side, we’ve got two jokers who have no sense of the world outside of our borders, and who have no sense of the world inside our borders either. (C’mon. Alaska?!?! What could an Alaskan who has never lived outside their home state know about the rest of the country? Oh, wait, she went to school in Idaho. Yeah, that’s cosmopolitan. And McCain is totally insulated from the real world by the vast amounts of wealth his wife has. Can’t remember how many houses he owns? Thinks that less than $5 million a year is middle class? Doesn’t know how to use a computer?!?!?)
What I’m wondering is how this sits with the average Republican. A lot of my family are diehard Republicans, and they sort of lost interest in the whole thing when McCain won the nomination, and have actually become resigned to Obama winning the presidency. I cannot imagine what it must be like to feel forced to support someone you have no desire to support.
The current meme circulating on these internets is whether or not we should trust someone who can’t use a computer to lead the nation.
I have to confess, I’ve actually never really thought about it. I don’t hold it against anyone to not be familiar with the technology, but if you’re gonna be sitting behind the Shiny Red Button, you better be damn well-versed with technology, man!
Especially with technology that is now as essential as the telephone and the radio has been.
And this isn’t agist. My 72 year old uncle who happens to be an dyed-in-the-wool, Fox News-watching Republican knows how to use a computer, for God’s sake. As do both of my parents, who are in their 60s.
If you don’t know how to use a computer, you’ve got serious problems that should disqualify you from important positions.
Disturbing blog post about how white blue-collar workers supposedly won’t vote for Obama if HRC doesn’t get the nomination.
There is absolutely no reason for white blue-collar workers to vote for McCain except for the fact that he’s white and Obama isn’t. Since McCain is simply going to be a continuation of W’s failed policies that will continue to foster economic decay, voting Republican is tantamount to economic suicide.
The sad fact of the matter is that, if we keep outsourcing their jobs to India and China, white blue-collar workers will eventually disappear.
We should really learn a lesson from the Republican Party this election. They know the jig is up, and that they’ve got to retrench if they don’t want to become completely irrelevant and go the way of the Whigs. So what do they do? They select the candidate that has the best chance—however remote—of appealing to independents and conservative Democrats. As a result, this move basically repudiates a significant segment of their base. Make no mistake, selecting McCain is a big middle-finger to the religious right.
I would argue that McCain will have a much harder time getting the religious right to back him up than Obama will getting white blue-collar workers to back him up. After all, McCain’s record shows that he really doesn’t care too much about the religious right’s agenda. McCain takes a libertarian stance to things like abortion, gay marriage, sex ed in schools, and the teaching of evolution. In contrast, Obama has been an organizer, for God’s sake. This is the precise demographics that he cares about: the worker that is getting shafted by corporate greed and uncontrolled globalization. Remember that he is of a new generation that simply doesn’t care about race the way that the older generations do.
As a person-of-color, it’s really hard to see the supposed appeal to the white blue-collar worker of HRC as someone who has their best interests in mind. All I can see is a call to white solidarity.
Now I’ve been an Obama supporter since he ran for Illinois State Senate. I definitely want him to win the Democratic nomination so that he can kick McCain’s ass and win the presidency.
Truth be told, I *am* totally turned off by HRC’s strategy of promising a return to the 1990’s. While the Clinton Era (which I like to refer to as the Pax Clintonia) was definitely a better time than the W Era (which I like to refer to as the Fall of the Republic), you know what, it could’ve been better.
This is not to say that I think Obama is going to somehow get Democrats and Republicans to hold hands and sing Kumbayah for the next four years. In all reality, even if the Democrats dominate two of three branches of the government, I don’t care if they don’t do anything at all. All I want to stop is the active demolition of the Constitution by W and Big Dick. I don’t particularly care if Congress ends up in gridlock for the rest of my lifetime. As long as they’re not actively trying to subvert the intent of the Founding Fathers and not trying to setup a theocracy backed by mercenaries who are above the law, I’ll be happy.
While my vote tends to go to the progressive candidate, my ideal form of government is still utopian anarchy. Not that that’s ever going to happen, but a man can dream, can’t he?
So if HRC manages to take Obama down somehow, I guess I will probably grudgingly vote for her. (Assuming that I don’t come down with another case of acute gastroenteritis.)
Alison of bluishorange complains about how people refer to Barack as “Obama” while they refer to HRC as “Hillary.”, but realizes that HRC herself is promoting her first name in her campaign. Now, I can see how this can be construed as disrespectful. In all honesty, that’s why I call her HRC. (You know, like FDR, JFK, RFK, MLK, LBJ. I mean, that’s not bad company, is it?) You can’t just call her “Clinton” because that’ll be too confusing. (Seriously, if she wins the presidency, how do we refer to them? Are we going to be doomed to constantly refer to Bill as “former president and first gentleman Clinton”?)
And referring to Barack as BHO is just not going to work for aesthetic reasons.
Last night, I dreamt that the L.A. Lakers were in the playoffs, and they had fought pitched battles against the strongest teams in the Western Conference, ekeing out a bare win in the seventh game of the Conference Finals in overtime, only to lose the NBA Championship to some pathetic Eastern Conference team, and I woke up completely drained and agitated.
And I realized that my dream wasn’t about basketball, but about the Presidential Race. I really want Obama to win this thing, but I’m afraid of how I’ll feel if he doesn’t.
My sister reminds me of the 1968 Democratic National Convention which ended up erupting into riots. 1968 was a crazy year. Both MLK and RFK had been assassinated. The Vietnam War was still raging and sending body bags back at an obscene rate, and the American public was in an uproar. LBJ had announced that he would not seek re-election. The front-runners of the Democratic presidential nomination were Hubert Humphrey (who would end up losing ignobly to Nixon), the more status quo candidate, and Eugene McCarthy, whose platform rested heavily on an anti-war stance, with the goal of rapid withdrawal from Vietnam. The undemocratic manner in which Humphrey won the nomination without having participated in a single primary ended up being a liability in the general election, and resulted in permanent changes in the nomination process.
The 2008 Democratic National Convention runs the risk of being a similar debacle. No one has been assassinated (yet), but the War in Iraq is still raging and continuing to send body bags back to the homeland. Al Gore is not going to run for re-election. While HRC (whom I see as the status quo candidate) and Obama (who has a legitimate anti-war stance) are a lot closer in delegate counts than Humphrey and McCarthy were, there looms the specter of superdelegates deciding the nomination. And if they stupidly swing the pendulum away from the popular vote, you can be certain that mayhem will ensue. The other albatrosses are Michigan and Florida, who, according to party rules, will have no delegates, as punishment for moving their respective primaries up. While it sucks that Michigan and Florida Democrats have been denied their ability to vote, it would also suck immensely to reverse the rules all-of-the-sudden now. HRC has already brought up the nasty notion of contesting this ruling, and if this becomes an issue, it will also likely cause chaos.
On the other hand, it looks more like it will be the Republican Party that is bound to fracture. The unholy alliance of corporate interests, libertarians, and fundamentalist Christians that got Reagan elected back in the day is unravelling with each primary and caucus. The party faithful have chosen McCain—the man renown for being a “maverick”—as their candidate. Romney—the status quo “mainstream” candidate backed by such hacks as Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt—has tanked badly and is out. Only the spoilers are left: Huckabee—the darling of unhinged fundamentalist Christians, and Ron Paul—the dark horse supported by delusional libertarians (although there are rumors that his run is coming to an end.) Even if McCain manages to fix the election in his favor, the Republican Party as we know it is finished.
The scary thing is the idea that the nomination of HRC will galvanize Republicans of all stripes to vote against her. Given what happened in 2004 (in which Democrats foolishly picked John Kerry as the “anybody-but-Bush” candidate), it remains to be seen whether antipathy against a particular candidate will be enough. I am somewhat skeptical that an “anybody-but-Hillary” sentiment will actually help McCain win the election. (I am less skeptical that Diebold may help McCain win the election.)
In any case, Barack has been my man from the start, ever since he was in the Illinois State Senate. I left Illinois in 2004, right when he was starting his bid for the U.S. Senate and I never dreamt that he would have made it this far.
In policy content, the differences between HRC and Obama are small details. (Not that the details don’t matter, but they have far more similarity with each other than they do with McCain.) But the one thing that swings my vote completely is the fact that HRC voted for the war, and Obama was against it from the start.
To paraphrase Obama himself, there’s something to be said about being ready on day one, but there’s something also to be said being right on day one.
It’s going to be an interesting year. Here’s to hoping that no blood will be spilt.
I remember watching (and eventually becoming nauseated by) the news coverage of the WTC attacks back in 2001 and thinking how Rudy G was totally posing for a presidential run. I’m actually surprised he managed to fuck it up so badly. He managed to piss away his position as front-runner, and he even turned 9/11 into a sad, pathetic joke.
I mean, if the uber-idiot W made it, how could a guy who (ostensibly) ran NYC go wrong?
Don’t get me wrong. Giuliani is a goddamn corrupt fascist thug. While he did clean up NYC big time, it wasn’t without grave human cost. But we all know that Rudy wouldn’t bat an eyelash when confronted with torture, and would think nothing about setting the Constitution on fire. So good riddance. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
No, I’ve learned everything, and I’ve had to learn it on my own. Growing up we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow the war was somehow our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don’t see our greatness, they hate us. And we deserve it. We have created an era of fear in the world. If we don’t want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.
— Prince Zuko from “Avatar: The Last Airbender” condemningU.S. foreign policy and the disasterous war in Iraqthe Fire Nation’s war of imperialism.
They have some deep cartoons for 6-11 year olds these days.
I like to think I take a progressive stance on several issues: for example, universal health care, women’s rights for choice, same sex marriage. I want us out of Iraq now. I want us to work on alternative fuels, and to add stricter regulations to the consumption of hydrocarbons. On the other hand, I’m all for a small government. Maybe Reagan successfully brainwashed me as a child. If I lived during the time of the foundation of the Republic (and I wasn’t a person-of-color), I might have been a Whig. I’m all for weak executives, paralyzed/gridlocked legislators, and strict constructionists. Let the people in power play their futile tug-of-wars. It will let the rest of us get down to business. To me, states’ rights are paramount, and local politics are key.
The company who is running this site is Dutch. I honestly didn’t think that Obama was more progressive than Edwards, but apparently it’s not just the media frenzy that makes me want to vote for my man Barack. According to this site, he actually best matches my political positions.
I wasn’t expecting this.
I found an amusing site through del.icio.us called Twittertale “You kiss your momma with that mouth?”) that has filters set up to capture any Twitter post that contains expletives.
The post that amused me the most was this one:
Ha! Wil Wheaton twittered re: Rudy losing Iowa: “Kiss my ass, you fearmongering pile of authoritarian dogshit!!” —lirael
The blogosphere is a-twitter with Barack’s unlooked-for win in Iowa last night. Obama may not be as progressive as Edwards, and on certain positions he is definitely to the right of where I stand, but symbolically speaking, he is ideal.
Bruce Sterling, one of the founding fathers of cyberpunk gives us a little snippet of Rolling Stone’s coverage of Barack’s victory.
Some choice quotes:
[The next president must be] a symbol of the best possible future for twenty-first-century multicultural America and an antidote to both the callous reactionary idiocy of the Bush administration and the shrewd but soulless corporatism of the Clinton machine.
[Iraq, New Orleans, and other debacles/scandals] exposed much of Congress and the Cabinet as a low-rent crime family hired to collect protection money for the likes of Halliburton and Pfizer.
Obama is a dynamic, handsome, virile presence, a stark contrast to the bloated hairy shitbags we usually elect to positions of power in this country. Moreover, he completely lacks that air of grasping, gutter-scraping ambition sickness that follows most presidential hopefuls around like a rain cloud.
(The last one is my favorite.)
I know that every politician clamors for change and rarely ever delivers, but it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a shittier job of running the country than W has. Even I could do better while doped up on Valium and drunk off my ass. (At least I’d know not to get involved in a fucking land war in Asia!)
Seriously, though. W has shown us how low our country can go. Unless we do something batshit crazy like elect Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney, it’s hard to imagine doing much worse for the next four to eight years. I mean, seriously, eventually we’ll have depopulated so much of Iraq that the insurgents would have anyone to hide behind. And while places like the Eastern seaboard and parts of California are likely to be underwater in the next decade or so, it’s not going to under the next president’s watch. The immigration problem will work itself out because soon American citizens will be just as uneducated and as challenged by the English language as the average undocumented worker, making the pay differential negligible. Spanish-speaking America (Mexico, Central America, South America) is likely to experience a renaissance as the dollar continues its downward spiral, making it even less favorable to try to get to the U.S.
It almost doesn’t matter, really. If Obama gets elected president, it will repudiate the current thinking of the DLC, that mealy-mouthed, spine-less, slimy, scummy branch of the Democratic government that has been promising center-right, Republicanesque policies all these long years. It will show all those fucking racists out there what’s what. (And don’t pretend that there aren’t a lot of closet racists out there.) It will show the rest of the world that we aren’t all a bunch of ignorant fuckwits who are out to destroy the world. 
C’mon. We all know that Obama has at least 15-30 IQ points over W. Even if he were to start another hopeless war somewhere, and lose yet another entire American city to climate change, things would still probably go better than anything monkey-boy and his feces-hurling minions could cook up.
But it would change American forever. It would be a big “fuck you” to all the reactionary elements of our society. We want an America that is ready for the future, not an America that is forever looking backwards to a pre-1960’s, pre-Social Security/Title XIX, pre-free speech, pre-civil rights movement, pre-New Deal, even pre-abolition era (Just remember Trent Lott’s not-so-long-ago affirmation of Strom Thurmond’s straight-up segregationist/regressivist platform, may the motherfucker burn in hell.)
Welcome, once and for all, to the 21st century.
I’ll admit it, though. Barack is still not far left enough for me. In terms of politics, I’m definitely closer to Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich. But Barack’s message is powerful. Hope. And change. I wonder how Hillary is going to spin her third place showing. Maybe this will get her to finally give up the past, and to abandon her message of status quo ante W. We don’t want to just go back to the Pax Clintonis of the 1990s. What we want is a revolution.
I read Barack Obama’s speech and felt like I had to post it (originally on Politico.com):
Ten months ago, I stood on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., and began an unlikely journey to change America.
I did not run for the presidency to fulfill some long-held ambition or because I believed it was somehow owed to me. I chose to run in this election — at this moment — because of what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now.” Because we are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. Our planet is in peril. Our health care system is broken, our economy is out of balance, our education system fails too many of our children, and our retirement system is in tatters.
At this defining moment, we cannot wait any longer for universal health care. We cannot wait to fix our schools. We cannot wait for good jobs, and living wages, and pensions we can count on. We cannot wait to halt global warming, and we cannot wait to end this war in Iraq.
I chose to run because I believed that the size of these challenges had outgrown the capacity of our broken and divided politics to solve them; because I believed that Americans of every political stripe were hungry for a new kind of politics, a politics that focused not just on how to win but why we should, a politics that focused on those values and ideals that we held in common as Americans; a politics that favored common sense over ideology, straight talk over spin.
Most of all, I believed in the power of the American people to be the real agents of change in this country — because we are not as divided as our politics suggests; because we are a decent, generous people willing to work hard and sacrifice for future generations; and I was certain that if we could just mobilize our voices to challenge the special interests that dominate Washington and challenge ourselves to reach for something better, there was no problem we couldn’t solve — no destiny we couldn’t fulfill.
Ten months later, Iowa, you have vindicated that faith. You’ve come out in the blistering heat and the bitter cold not just to cheer, but to challenge — to ask the tough questions; to lift the hood and kick the tires; to serve as one place in America where someone who hasn’t spent their life in the Washington spotlight can get a fair hearing.
You’ve earned the role you play in our democracy because no one takes it more seriously. And I believe that’s true this year more than ever because, like me, you feel that same sense of urgency.
All across this state, you’ve shared with me your stories. And all too often they’ve been stories of struggle and hardship.
I’ve heard from seniors who were betrayed by CEOs who dumped their pensions while pocketing bonuses, and from those who still can’t afford their prescriptions because Congress refused to negotiate with the drug companies for the cheapest available price.
I’ve met Maytag workers who labored all their lives only to see their jobs shipped overseas; who now compete with their teenagers for $7-an-hour jobs at Wal-Mart.
I’ve spoken with teachers who are working at doughnut shops after school just to make ends meet, who are still digging into their own pockets to pay for school supplies.
Just two weeks ago, I heard a young woman in Cedar Rapids who told me she only gets three hours of sleep because she works the night shift after a full day of college and still can’t afford health care for a sister with cerebral palsy. She spoke not with self-pity but with determination, and wonders why the government isn’t doing more to help her afford the education that will allow her to live out her dreams.
I’ve spoken to veterans who talk with pride about what they’ve accomplished in Afghanistan and Iraq, but who nevertheless think of those they’ve left behind and question the wisdom of our mission in Iraq; the mothers weeping in my arms over the memories of their sons; the disabled or homeless vets who wonder why their service has been forgotten.
And I’ve spoken to Americans in every corner of the state, patriots all, who wonder why we have allowed our standing in the world to decline so badly, so quickly. They know this has not made us safer. They know that we must never negotiate out of fear, but that we must never fear to negotiate with our enemies as well as our friends. They are ashamed of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and warrantless wiretaps and ambiguity on torture. They love their country and want its cherished values and ideals restored.
It is precisely because you’ve experienced these frustrations, and seen the cost of inaction in your own lives, that you understand why we can’t afford to settle for the same old politics. You know that we can’t afford to allow the insurance lobbyists to kill health care reform one more time, and the oil lobbyists to keep us addicted to fossil fuels because no one stood up and took their power away when they had the chance.
You know that we can’t afford four more years of the same divisive food fight in Washington that’s about scoring political points instead of solving problems; that’s about tearing your opponents down instead of lifting this country up.
We can’t afford the same politics of fear that tells Democrats that the only way to look tough on national security is to talk, act and vote like George Bush Republicans; that invokes 9/11 as a way to scare up votes instead of a challenge that should unite all Americans to defeat our real enemies.
We can’t afford to be so worried about losing the next election that we lose the battles we owe to the next generation.
The real gamble in this election is playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expecting a different result. And that’s a risk we can’t take. Not this year. Not when the stakes are this high.
In this election, it is time to turn the page. In seven days, it is time to stand for change.
This has been our message since the beginning of this campaign. It was our message when we were down, and our message when we were up. And it must be catching on, because in these last few weeks, everyone is talking about change.
But you can’t at once argue that you’re the master of a broken system in Washington and offer yourself as the person to change it. You can’t fall in line behind the conventional thinking on issues as profound as war and offer yourself as the leader who is best prepared to chart a new and better course for America.
The truth is, you can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people and it will bring real results if we have the courage to change. I believe deeply in those words. But they are not mine. They were Bill Clinton’s in 1992, when Washington insiders questioned his readiness to lead.
My experience is rooted in the lives of the men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I fought for as an organizer when the local steel plant closed. It’s rooted in the lives of the people I stood up for as a civil rights lawyer when they were denied opportunity on the job or justice at the voting booth because of what they looked like or where they came from. It’s rooted in an understanding of how the world sees America that I gained from living, traveling and having family beyond our shores — an understanding that led me to oppose this war in Iraq from the start. It’s experience rooted in the real lives of real people, and it’s the kind of experience Washington needs right now.
There are others in this race who say that this kind of change sounds good, but that I’m not angry or confrontational enough to get it done.
Well, let me tell you something, Iowa. I don’t need any lectures on how to bring about change, because I haven’t just talked about it on the campaign trail. I’ve fought for change all my life.
I walked away from a job on Wall Street to bring job training to the jobless and after-school programs to kids on the streets of Chicago.
I turned down the big-money law firms to win justice for the powerless as a civil rights lawyer.
I took on the lobbyists in Illinois and brought Democrats and Republicans together to expand health care to 150,000 people and pass the first major campaign finance reform in 25 years; and I did the same thing in Washington when we passed the toughest lobbying reform since Watergate. I’m the only candidate in this race who hasn’t just talked about taking power away from lobbyists, I’ve actually done it. So if you want to know what kind of choices we’ll make as president, you should take a look at the choices we made when we had the chance to bring about change that wasn’t easy or convenient.
That’s the kind of change that’s more than just rhetoric — that’s change you can believe in.
It’s change that won’t just come from more anger at Washington or turning up the heat on Republicans. There’s no shortage of anger and bluster and bitter partisanship out there. We don’t need more heat. We need more light. I’ve learned in my life that you can stand firm in your principles while still reaching out to those who might not always agree with you. And although the Republican operatives in Washington might not be interested in hearing what we have to say, I think Republican and independent voters outside of Washington are. That’s the once-in-a-generation opportunity we have in this election.
For the first time in a long time, we have the chance to build a new majority of not just Democrats, but independents and Republicans who’ve lost faith in their Washington leaders but want to believe again — who desperately want something new.
We can change the electoral math that’s been all about division and make it about addition — about building a coalition for change and progress that stretches through blue states and red states. That’s how I won some of the reddest, most Republican counties in Illinois. That’s why the polls show that I do best against the Republicans running for president — because we’re attracting more support from independents and Republicans than any other candidate. That’s how we’ll win in November and that’s how we’ll change this country over the next four years.
In the end, the argument we are having between the candidates in the last seven days is not just about the meaning of change. It’s about the meaning of hope. Some of my opponents appear scornful of the word; they think it speaks of naiveté, passivity and wishful thinking.
But that’s not what hope is. Hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task before us or the roadblocks that stand in our path. Yes, the lobbyists will fight us. Yes, the Republican attack dogs will go after us in the general election. Yes, the problems of poverty and climate change and failing schools will resist easy repair. I know — I’ve been on the streets; I’ve been in the courts. I’ve watched legislation die because the powerful held sway and good intentions weren’t fortified by political will, and I’ve watched a nation get misled into war because no one had the judgment or the courage to ask the hard questions before we sent our troops to fight.
But I also know this. I know that hope has been the guiding force behind the most improbable changes this country has ever made. In the face of tyranny, it’s what led a band of colonists to rise up against an Empire. In the face of slavery, it’s what fueled the resistance of the slave and the abolitionist, and what allowed a president to chart a treacherous course to ensure that the nation would not continue half slave and half free. In the face of war and Depression, it’s what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. In the face of oppression, it’s what led young men and women to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through the streets of Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause. That’s the power of hope — to imagine, and then work for, what had seemed impossible before.
That’s the change we seek. And that’s the change you can stand for in seven days.
We’ve already beaten odds that the cynics said couldn’t be beaten. When we started 10 months ago, they said we couldn’t run a different kind of campaign.
They said we couldn’t compete without taking money from Washington lobbyists. But you proved them wrong when we raised more small donations from more Americans than any other campaign in history.
They said we couldn’t be successful if we didn’t have the full support of the establishment in Washington. But you proved them wrong when we built a grass-roots movement that could forever change the face of American politics.
They said we wouldn’t have a chance in this campaign unless we resorted to the same old negative attacks. But we resisted, even when we were written off, and ran a positive campaign that pointed out real differences and rejected the politics of slash and burn.
And now, in seven days, you have a chance once again to prove the cynics wrong. In seven days, what was improbable has the chance to beat what Washington said was inevitable. And that’s why in these last weeks, Washington is fighting back with everything it has — with attack ads and insults; with distractions and dishonesty; with millions of dollars from outside groups and undisclosed donors to try and block our path.
We’ve seen this script many times before. But I know that this time can be different.
Because I know that when the American people believe in something, it happens.
If you believe, then we can tell the lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over.
If you believe, then we can stop making promises to America’s workers and start delivering — jobs that pay, health care that’s affordable, pensions you can count on, and a tax cut for working Americans instead of the companies who send their jobs overseas.
If you believe, we can offer a world-class education to every child, and pay our teachers more, and make college dreams a reality for every American.
If you believe, we can save this planet and end our dependence on foreign oil.
If you believe, we can end this war, close Guantanamo, restore our standing, renew our diplomacy and once again respect the Constitution of the United States of America.
That’s the future within our reach. That’s what hope is — that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better is waiting for us around the corner. But only if we’re willing to work for it and fight for it. To shed our fears and our doubts and our cynicism. To glory in the task before us of remaking this country block by block, precinct by precinct, county by county, state by state.
There is a moment in the life of every generation when, if we are to make our mark on history, this spirit must break through.
This is the moment.
This is our time.
And if you will stand with me in seven days — if you will stand for change so that our children have the same chance that somebody gave us; if you’ll stand to keep the American dream alive for those who still hunger for opportunity and thirst for justice; if you’re ready to stop settling for what the cynics tell you you must accept, and finally reach for what you know is possible, then we will win this caucus, we will win this election, we will change the course of history, and the real journey — to heal a nation and repair the world — will have truly begun.
Thank you.