2012 US General Election Discussions: Start to Finish

[Cin]

'Let’s Stay Together' -- Can Obama’s Charm Offensive Woo Back Disgruntled Progressives?

How do we reconcile our need to hold the president accountable with our reaction to this renewed charm offensive?
By Sarah Seltzer

Progressives were furious at Barack Obama a few weeks ago. Between his signing of the National Defense Authorization Act and the horrible decision to overrule the FDA on emergency contraception availability, added to his pursuit of the “war on terror” using methods as questionably legal as Dick Cheney's, it felt like the last vestiges of hope and change from 2008 had finally burned out.

But on the internet these past few weeks, the disappointing President Obama ceded the spotlight once more to the beguiling Candidate Obama, reminding some of his former supporters how utterly entranced we were by the man we pulled the lever for three long years ago--and leading us to wonder how much it matters now.

The Man Vs. The Politician

To put this dichotomy another way, there's the political Obama who seems, maddeningly, to value compromise itself over what compromise actually achieves--who doesn’t come out swinging. And then there’s the cultural Obama, who is swinging: comfortable being himself and also one of us. He's clever, attuned to social currents, a little bit dorky, accessible, with an image we love to see, admire and joke about -- and most importantly who refuses to be cowed by the racist tenor of attacks he receives. In his cultural existence, he can blend an attitude that's above the fray with that refusal to bow to his critics. It's a balance he has yet to achieve politically.

Before I dissect this duality, it's important to note that some liberals have been loyal to the president despite his betrayals and disappointments (and been dubbed Obama-bots), while others remain furious at President Obama for some of his more disastrous policy decisions -- and will be unmoved by his reemergence into the cultural space. There's also been a robust debate about the racial element of progressive disappointment at the President.

But I'm referring here to a broad swath of us who to some degree are in both categories -- who despair over the politician and delight in the man, who do sympathize with his position politically while still feeling he's failed to lead at key moments. How much will his personality, as it's showcased during election season, be able to reel that group back in?

Despite brilliant efforts from his campaign to begin that wooing -- selling his voice singing Al Green as a ringtone, or hawking a “birth certificate” mug poking fun at the birthers -- the rise of Occupy Wall Street indicates this: for many young Obama supporters, his first term demonstrated the utter failure of the political system at large, its inability to be transformed by one leader. Our journey has parallels to his own political journey, moving from a politician who truly believed in the concept of hand across the aisle to a politician, it seems, who has realized that in Washington, you need to fight.

Obama Rules The Internet

So in embracing "change we can believe in" perhaps we, the supporters, were as naive as he was. Still, Candidate Obama's reemergence reminds us there are some things that a leader can transform. So let's return to the Obama who has dominated the internet this past week with new viral memes starring his best self. Each one offers us insight into his appeal to progressives, even the most fed-up ones.

First, there’s the photo of him giving a fistbump to a maintenance man in a White House hallway, which I keep seeing on Facebook. Can you imagine Mitt Romney, or even notoriously germophobic George W. Bush having such a natural “man of the people” touch?

Another meme was born when people began to eagerly circulate the YouTube video of President Obama singing--on key--the tough opening bar of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” at a fundraiser at the Apollo Theater, with Al Green himself watching approvingly from the sidelines. It soon became a ringtone and garnered millions of views.

How symbolic that choice of tune is. One of the most memorably catchy and plaintive songs of its era, it's about a lover bemoaning the need of other couples to break up, pleading for longevity in his own relationship, perhaps even wooing his estranged partner back. Sound familiar? Sitting in our kitchen this past weekend, my spouse and I both confessed that we felt like the president was singing right to us, asking us for a second chance, asking us to stay together through 2016.

Hilarious, yes, and clever. But these Internet sensations aren’t just measures of how au courant our President is or how great his singing voice is. Rather, they're about a certain defiance he maintains against the vitriol coming his way. The fistbump and the Al Green, after all, are affirmations of Obama’s unflinching identification with black culture -- as well as a broader pop culture that is diverse and frankly, pleasurable. He’s our first hip-hop loving president, after all. He's the political version of a style icon: a trendsetter. A celebrity.

Culturally Defiant

The president's personal choices to have Jay-Z on his mp3 player and a fistbump at the ready, therefore, are important. They fly in the face of the increasingly racially-loaded attacks he’s been receiving from his opponents: accusations of being a “food stamp president” and a “Saul Alinksy radical.”

Because Obama has actually governed as a complete moderate, maybe even a conservative, these insane charges just don't stick in terms of policy. Instead, the accusations coming from the Right are aimed at very same personality that delights many progressives: proudly African American, urban, intellectual, and hip.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are desperately vying to reclaim a starched-shirt version of White America from the black president some voters still can’t believe we elected. So by singing Al Green, by having "date night" with Michelle, by inviting the hip-hop artist Common to the White House, or by hosting a Tim Burton-influenced Halloween party in the White House, Obama is quietly but firmly giving the kiss-off to those who hate him for these reasons.

Which brings us to our third viral meme: A photo that was circulating widely on Facebook depicting a fake, doctored Washington Post front page, juxtaposing a laughing President Obama with the headline of Newt Gingrich’s victory in the South Carolina primary. Even though the image was false, the message was clear, to use the language of another meme: look at how many fucks Obama gives about you, Newt. Zero.

This picture is a fantasy, though because the political Obama is more likely to take his GOP colleagues seriously than to laugh at them -- and maybe he should. Certainly he would face a major backlash if he really did treat his opponents with the scorn they deserve, while they get a free pass for their dogwhistles at him. The point is, this image of Obama--simultaneously mocking his opponents (literally) while also defying their treatment of him, being both above the fray and in it, is only achievable in the cultural space, not the political one. You can't be above the fray in Washington.

We've Always Liked Him

The fact is, many progressives never stopped liking Obama as a figure, and we’ve loved his wife and family fiercely all the way through his term. We're also sympathetic to the unique position he's in as the recipient of ugly, outsized and racially tinged attacks. So when he isn’t kowtowing to completely insane Republicans or sending drones into Pakistan, leaving innocents dead, when he isn't doing things that make us bang our heads against the wall, Obama remains a likeable guy. He has been all along--and the feeling that there’s a badass, smart, brilliant person who has it in him to raise the middle finger to his critics makes his failures more frustrating. Where was that guy during the debt ceiling debacle? Where was he when the NDAA came to his desk?

So as we move forward into campaign season, the question is how to reconcile our need to continually hold the president accountable with our reaction to this renewed charm offensive. And if we are indeed charmed and at least want to see him re-elected, how to avoid falling into Obama-bot mode, defending him against legitimate and important charges from the Left?

The answer is that we can hold multiple ideas at the same time. We can like the man and many of his policy accomplishments, while deploring his policies of empire and political entanglement with the one-percent. We can believe he was hamstrung by a ridiculous Congress and subject to baseless racist attacks while also feeling he hasn't done enough to boost progressive ideas and policies. We can support his reelection while remaining convinced that such an event won't be nearly enough to set the country on the right track--and that policies like detention without trial, corporate welfare, income inequality, stalemate on women's rights, a lack of urgency on the environment, and a creeping police state will continue unless we ourselves combat them with actions more drastic than the ballot.

Perhaps most importantly, we have to continue to push President Obama to live up to the ideals of his campaign persona -- not the post-partisan one, but the tough and idealistic one -- even in the face of an obstructionist, personally vindictive opposition, and to be as confident and uncompromising in his political identity as he appears to be in his personal one.

http://www.alternet.org/story/153857..._/?page=entire

[Cin]

I get Obama is the only game in town. The alternative is too grim to consider. But that doesn't change the reality of what is going on. I will vote for Obama. But I won't believe that he plans to do what he says he will do. I just believe he is the lesser of the evils we have to choose from.

State of Obama: Immunity for Wall Street

by Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report executive editor

President Obama had hoped to put on a big show – a huge con, really – at his State of the Union address, by announcing a monetary “settlement” of massive banker criminality in housing foreclosures. “Obama’s operatives have doggedly pressed for a settlement that would effectively give banks immunity from prosecution.” But he was thwarted by a small group of state attorneys general that wanted a real investigation into “the crime of the century.” So the president “was finally forced to set up a federal unit of his own.” Since Obama’s own law enforcers have failed to send a single banker to jail, Wall Street immunity is likely to remain the real State of the Union.

“Every action he has taken as president has been to protect the innocents on Wall Street.”

Empire and the banks. President Obama’s State of the Union address, bracketed by imperial bombast, made actual news with yet another administration maneuver to protect Wall Street from the wrath of the states. The remainder of his speech was mainly a rehash of previous policies, heavy on tax tinkerings that would have made a previous generation of moderate Republicans – a now extinct breed – proud.

The only newsworthy item, the creation of a “special unit of prosecutors” that the president announced would “expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis,” is not an Obama initiative, but a response to unwanted pressures. Up until almost the moment of the presidential address, the administration has been bullying state attorneys general to drop their independent investigations into banker criminality in the 2008 meltdown and the foreclosure of millions of Americans’ homes. The so-called “robo-signing” scandal calls into question the fundamental legality of Wall Street mortgage securities practices – what some have described as the “crime of the century.” The small group of attorneys general – variously numbered between 5 and 15 – have been buttressed by a vocal Campaign for a Fair Settlement, made up of consumer and labor groups and activist organizations such as MoveOn.

“Obama had hoped to roll over the recalcitrant attorneys general in time to make the settlement the centerpiece of his State of the Union.”

Obama’s operatives have doggedly pressed for a settlement that would effectively give banks immunity from prosecution. Instead, home owners would be “compensated” from a paltry fund of no more than $25 billion – a drop in the bucket, considering the trillions in housing values that disappeared into illegally securitized air in the catastrophe, and much of the money might not even come out of the bankers’ own accounts. Obama had hoped to roll over the recalcitrant attorneys general in time to make the settlement the centerpiece of his State of the Union.

The “special unit of prosecutors,” officially dubbed the Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses, is to be co-chaired by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whom the White House had booted out of a negotiating committee because of his opposition to Obama’s banker protection racket. Last night, at the joint session of Congress, Obama sat Schneiderman in the First Lady’s box, to give the impression that he and the obstinate New Yorker had been on the same page all the time. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Obama was trying to shut down the attorney generals’ probes into banker criminality, and was finally forced to set up a federal unit of his own. However, with the “investigation” now in Obama’s hands, de facto banker immunity may have been achieved, and the puny “settlement” could soon be announced. Wall Street will be pleased, and no doubt reciprocate with hundreds of millions in campaign contributions.

“With the ‘investigation’ now in Obama’s hands, de facto banker immunity may have been achieved.”

U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, the former corporate lawyer, has been a good soldier. His own investigations of the meltdown and its aftermath – if they actually existed – have resulted in not a single corporate bad actor going to jail. Although Obama told the Congress and the people that what happened when the “house of cards collapsed” was “wrong,” he has also opined that most of what the bankers did was “not illegal.” Every action he has taken as president has been to protect the innocents on Wall Street.

“We’ve put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again,” said the president. Nonsense. Obama fought tooth and nail to defend the fatal derivatives market from serious tampering by progressive Democrats. The crisis of 2008 was set off by the multiplier effect of derivatives on the collapse of toxic mortgage securities. At the time, at least $600 trillion dollars in derivatives loomed over the planet. Today, derivatives have rebounded to…over $600 trillion. The banks that were “too big to fail” are even bigger, and there are fewer of them – meaning, capital is more concentrated than before. Obama’s “new rules” have preserved and further consolidated the hegemony of finance capital over U.S. economic and political life. The world economy teeters on the brink.

But, “America is back!” says the president. It is the “indispensable nation” – the one that treats the rest of the planet, and most of its own citizens, as entirely dispensable. Hail to the Chief!

[Toughy]

http://www.npr.org/webapp#1001/146099697

Study: SuperPACs Behind Nearly Half Of 2012 Ads
By Peter Overby
January 30, 2012
All Things Considered [ 3 min. 47 sec. ]

A new analysis shows that in the deluge of TV ads in the early voting states for the Republican presidential primaries, nearly half of the ads are coming not from the candidates but from superPACs — the new breed of political committees that raise unregulated money.

Political scientists at Wesleyan University in Connecticut found that so far, there have been about the same number of GOP primary ads as there were four years ago.

What's different — and different in a big way — is the role of outside money groups, mostly superPACs, says Erika Franklin Fowler, a director of the Wesleyan Media Project. "They went from about 3 percent of total ad airings in the 2008 race to almost half, about 44 percent, in 2012," she says. <snip>

[Toughy]

I read Aljazeera daily

http://chrome.aljazeera.com/#!/news/...13017598357206

Romney surges in polls ahead of Florida vote

Polls show Newt Gingrich struggling to halt rival's momentum, a day ahead of state's US presidential Republican primary. <snip>

[Toughy]

because I come from white privilege (with or with out consent) I am required to ask myself if I (and anyone else including the press) hold President Obama to a different standard because he is not a white man......

Would the same columns be written about his failures as the focus or would the columns be about his successes. He has accomplished much.....great strides similar to the great junior god Bill Clinton. Why is the focus on what he has NOT done rather than what he HAS done. Bill in spite of cigars and blue dress stains came out smelling like a rose and probably would get elected today if he could run. In terms of policy, there is not the width of a single strand of silk difference between Bill and Barack.

Yet the latte liberals all love Bill and talk shit about Barack failures rather than for his successes..... stinks of white privilege.....

[Cin]

Originally Posted by Toughy

because I come from white privilege (with or with out consent) I am required to ask myself if I (and anyone else including the press) hold President Obama to a different standard because he is not a white man......

Would the same columns be written about his failures as the focus or would the columns be about his successes. He has accomplished much.....great strides similar to the great junior god Bill Clinton. Why is the focus on what he has NOT done rather than what he HAS done. Bill in spite of cigars and blue dress stains came out smelling like a rose and probably would get elected today if he could run. In terms of policy, there is not the width of a single strand of silk difference between Bill and Barack.

Yet the latte liberals all love Bill and talk shit about Barack failures rather than for his successes..... stinks of white privilege.....

Well seems to me that it is not only white people who understand what is going on politically and why. Nor is it only white people who are left of center.

Glen Ford the executive editor of the Black Agenda Report wrote the article
State of Obama: Immunity for Wall Street.http://blackagendareport.com/?q=blog/101

I don't think you have to be white to see the writing on the wall.

I think Clinton caught a break, if you can call what happened to him a break, because economically the country was in pretty good shape. I think it was the comedian Chris Rock that said something to the effect that since Clinton balanced the budget he deserved a blow job or some such thing.

It's a different financial world. People are hurting. That's the only difference I see. Because Clinton was no different. He was no better. The way the system is set up no president can ignore corporate power. Corporations run the country, hell they run the world. They assert global control. That must be at least somewhat clear at this point.

While race certainly plays into how Obama is viewed and assessed, it doesn't mean he need not be held accountable for his actions.

[Cin]

Gingrich and Romney Want to Say Adios to Bilingual Ballots
The GOP front-runners endorse a plan that could disenfranchise millions of voters—including their own.
By Adam Serwer

As Republican primary voters head to the polls in Florida on Tuesday, both GOP front-runners have endorsed a policy that would contradict existing law and could disenfranchise millions of voters across the country.

During a recent debate, both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney supported getting rid of bilingual ballots when the topic was brought up by the moderator. "I would have ballots in English," Gingrich said. "And I think you could have programs where virtually everybody would be able to read the ballots." Romney agreed. "I think Speaker Gingrich is right with regards to what he's described," he said.

That wasn't much of a stretch for Gingrich, who once called Spanish "the language of living in a ghetto." Yet their glib demand for English-only ballots would require amending the Voting Rights Act and doing away with hard-won legal requirements that have existed for decades. It's a sharp turn away from the Bush administration, which despite a spotty civil rights record filed more ballot access cases on behalf of non-English speakers than any administration had before.

"We used to have poll taxes, we used to have whites-only primaries, we used to not let women vote," says Myrna Perez, senior counsel with the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. "Policies that would make our ballots less accessible to Americans based on what language they speak would be at odds with that historical arc towards expanding the franchise."

Bilingual ballots are no abstract issue in Florida, which has a sizeable population of Americans whose first languages are Spanish or Haitian Creole. "The Haitian population is a voting bloc, the Hispanic community is a voting bloc," says Carolyn Thompson, a Florida-based activist with the Advancement Project, a civil rights group. "They pay taxes, they've won the right to vote in their language."

Under the 1975 revision of the Voting Rights Act, communities whose non-English speaking populations reach a certain level have to provide voting materials in alternate languages.

There are 238 jurisdictions covered by the Voting Rights Act's language requirements. It's hard to tell how many voters would be impacted by the repeal of those provisions, but the census estimates that there are more than 19 million eligible voters who come from the communities the law is meant to serve. Ten counties in Florida are among them, four of which went Republican in the last presidential election.

"Some of these ballot measures involve very complex legal language," Camila Gallardo of the Latino civil rights organization National Council of La Raza points out. "Some of the language is hard to understand even for fluent English speakers, let alone if your first language isn't English."

Republicans have long had a complex relationship with Florida. It's the site of great conservative victories, like George W. Bush seizing the presidency in 2000 and Marco Rubio crushing his challengers in 2010's Senate race. But it's also the kind of place where moderates like Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist thrive, a cosmopolitan state that anti-immigrant ex-GOP congressman Tom Tancredo once compared to the Tower of Babel. That's why Gingrich followed up Monday's debate with an appearance on the Spanish-language station Univison in which he called Romney's draconian approach to curtailing illegal immigration an "Obama-level fantasy," and why Romney turned Gingrich's remarks about Spanish being "ghetto" into a campaign ad. In Florida, a Republican who comes off as anti-immigrant or anti-Hispanic could see their political ambitions cut short fast. It's a difficult balancing act for members of a party that is seen as increasingly hostile by Latino voters, who are becoming more influential in American elections.

"They try to appeal to Latinos and Florida and during the general election, but everywhere else they're trying to be tough guys," says Dr. Gary Segura of the national polling firm Latino Decisions. "It's going to be very difficult for them to have it both ways."

More than 1 out of 10 Republican primary voters is Latino in Florida, so it's possible that Romney and Gingrich's commitment to English primacy, if applied, could disenfranchise part of their own base in the state. Or they could just be banking on the possibility that their voters are more likely to be completely bilingual.

"The Cuban population heavily concentrated in the Republican Party are bilingual, fluent, are likely to be able to hang with that," says Segura. "Some number of Republicans would be disenfranchised, but the largest number would be first-generation Puerto Rican Democrats."

Changing federal law isn't easy of course, and the Voting Rights Act was renewed in 2006 for another 25 years. By the time it's up for consideration again, Republicans might have even less interest in ensuring that language minorities have equal access to the ballot box, even in Florida.

"For a long time, Cubans were staunchly in the Republican column, although that demographic is really changing," says Gallardo. "[Today] you see a lot of young Hispanics registering with no party affiliation."

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012...ingual-ballots