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Author Topic: The Obama White House
Lyrhawn
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Putting him up there isn't an endorsement of everything the man stands for.

We'll never achieve any sort of meaningful bi-partisan spirit in good faith if every attempt to reach across the aisle is construed as a total acceptance of EVERYTHING the other side stands for and promotes.

I suspect that by the time Obama's first term in office is over, the gay community won't have much to complain about.

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kmbboots
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I believe that you're right about that. I think that that Pres.Elect Obama will do better than this would signal. This is still very disappointing.
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Lyrhawn
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Maybe.

It's impossible to make everyone happy with 100% of his choices. There are too many competing interests, and anything he does is going to piss of SOMEONE even while it greatly pleases someone else. From what I can tell, all of my major issues have been given big welcoming boosts by the people he has chosen to oversee their advocation. I'm rather thrilled with a great deal of his moves.

On some things of lesser importance I'm a litle hesitant to throw my enthusiasm behind his appointments, but it's really about perspective. He's signaling his intention to fulfill a great many of his campaign promises, maybe on a scale we haven't seen in decades. So if a couple things he does, that are mostly symbolic anyway, aren't totally up to snuff to the left wing, then I'm okay with that if it means sating the right in order to grease the skids later on.

And I don't just mean that in the "it's good politics" way. I also mean that it'd be nice to have a president that felt it was worthwhile to reach out to the other side, even if it annoyed his base, because he felt bringing the country just a little closer together was more valuable than political capital. That'd likely gain him political capital anyway, but it's rarely a blank check.

Maybe less than this specific issue, it's a sign that the hostility we've seen in the last eight years on BOTH sides to competing points of view is going to be tamped down and actively dissuaded in the next four, even if Obama has to bring BOTH sides with him grumbling all the way.

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Humean316
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quote:
I think that that Pres.Elect Obama will do better than this would signal. This is still very disappointing.
I cannot say that I know the anger some feel as a homosexual because I simply don't have those shoes, and yet, I do know that many in this country feel the same as Rick Warren. They do have those shoes, and if we really are going to bring this country together, we cannot do so by leaving such a large portion of the country behind. The same argument applies to, say, those who supported the war in Iraq and even those in the 28% who think Bush has done a wonderful job--coming together does not mean that we leave large portions of the country behind. In fact, that is how George Bush governed, he governed to the people who agreed with him, his version of togetherness meant that he was right and everyone should come around to his view of the world, but that's not truly how it works.

Some will argue that Obama provides legitimacy to the views of Rick Warren by giving him such a position, and yet, I would imagine that the millions and millions of Americans who agree with Pastor Warren provide that legitimacy anyway. But let's say that Obama is incorrect by giving a forum to those we disagree with, does that mean that he must do the same on every issue? Does that mean that those who disagree with us on abortion or capital punishment or illegal immigration should not be given a voice either? See, that's the problem with excluding someone when your goal is to bring people together, the question then becomes whether you are any better than the guy who came before.

The failure, both on our part and Obama's, lies not in our exclusion of those we disagree with, though that is important, but in our inability to accurately and effectively communicate our own ideals. In other words, I don't care who you are, you are a human being, and if we are truly going to come together as a better race of human beings, if humanity is going to improve, then I dare say that we cannot do so by ridding ourselves of those who are wrong.

Even though I strongly disagree with Rick Warren on nearly every issue, I have no problem, and in fact applaud, Obama's decision here. I do think it will matter what happens after this though, and if this is something that could be used to start a "real" dialogue about homosexual issues and religious politics, then I think it could be a wonderfully productive move.

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rivka
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Well said.
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aspectre
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Richardson out of nomination to Secretary of Commerce.
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Lyrhawn
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Sucks that he's getting hit with some of the same accusations as Blagovich, as it looks like very, very different circumstances. But Obama's statement was unusually strong given the taint of a federal investigation. Usually presidents or governors treat people under investigation as if they were radioactive. Obama knew about this investigation before he nominated him, which actually makes me wonder if Richardson really withdrew his name with no prompting or if Obama asked him to.

Either way, his statement was strong, and it looks like he really expected to have Richardson in the White House working for him at some point, and I hope he does. I think Richardson is a genuinely good guy, and a good public official, and I'd like him in charge of something, something other than New Mexico anyway.

It would seem that events are conspiring to give Obama a larger number of obstacles during his transition than he could have imagined when he first decided to run. Scandals, economic meltdown, trouble in the middle east and elsewhere, it's certainly not a milk run.

But like some have been saying, this gives Obama a chance to appoint someone to Commerce Secretary now to shut up some of his naysayers. There've been a lot of complaints about his appointments, and he might be able to sate those people by appointing one of their candidates to the spot.

There's a lot of continuing news out of Minnesota and Illinois if anyone is interested in the problems with the Senate candidates there. And Colorado's governor announced a replacement for Ken Salazar.

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aspectre
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_-aA_F_BMM
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DarkKnight
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This is an interesting short article:
Study: Obama's revolutionary small donor base a canard
quote:
Despite lofty narratives released by his campaign to the contrary, president-elect Barack Obama received about the same amount of money from small donors as George W. Bush did in 2004, according to a new study.
quote:
The descrepancy between the figures is that many of those $200-or-smaller donors gave repeatedly, an act which disqualifies them from being included in the small-donor category.

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TomDavidson
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I'm not sure that's necessarily a "canard." If multiple small donors made enough small donations to no longer be considered small donors, that doesn't really mean he has fewer small donors; it means he did a great job converting small donors into large donors.

The charitable way to interpret this data is that "regular people" gave more to Obama than they normally would. The uncharitable way is that "fat cats" donated tiny chunks to inflate the "small donation" totals.

Personally, I think the former is far more likely. I know a number of people in both categories, and it has certainly been my anecdotal experience that Obama managed to get donations from people who'd never donated before, managed to get people who'd previously only donated small amounts to -- in the long run -- donate quite a lot, and didn't approach wealthy donors any more often than was typical.

You could analyze the rolls to determine which of these effects held sway by comparing percentages of income donated over the last few campaigns, broken down by income categories.

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Xavier
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quote:
The descrepancy between the figures is that many of those $200-or-smaller donors gave repeatedly, an act which disqualifies them from being included in the small-donor category.
I gave $50 to him twice. That statement seems to imply that I would be excluded, even though both of my contributions together would still be less than $200.
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kmbboots
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I donated for the first time to a campaign. $25 dollars several times. (I don't recall how many exactly.) Not enough to make me a large donor.
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Lyrhawn
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I donated twice as well, two $25 donations, which were my first donations to a campaign.
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The Rabbit
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According to the rules, none of you are small donors.

How does it feel to be a Fat Cat?

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fugu13
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I think the cutoff is just a total of $200 or less, and it was clumsily explained. That is, Obama received far more donations of less than $200, but many of them were by the same people, meaning the number of donors that gave less than $200 to him was about the same as Bush's.
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Samprimary
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So if I donated more than $200 more than once, does that make me a Really Big Donor, or does that thrust me into the Monied Shadow-Hegemony?
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Lyrhawn
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Dude, first rule of Monied Shadow-Hegemony...you do NOT talk about Monied Shadow-Hegemony!
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Samprimary
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The first rule of Candlejack is you don't talk ab
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