It was recently reported that Reverend Wright will be publishing a book in October and going on a book tour. CNN has learned from Wright’s daughter that this is not correct.
What a relief!
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The Barack Obama campaign gave a prime speaking spot to Ohio Governor Ted Strickland on Tuesday night. Naturally, Ohio is a battleground state, and according to Strickland, the Obama team knows what they’re doing.
Strickland said he told Obama campaign leaders in Chicago that there are two ways to run statewide in Ohio: the Kerry strategy, focused on the metropolitan areas, or the “Strickland-Brown” strategy of focusing on all parts of Ohio, specifically suburban cities and counties as well as the rural areas.
“I believe the fact that the Obama campaign has already deployed the field staff they have, and the fact that every part of this state is being targeted, means that Senator Obama will not repeat the Kerry mistake,” Strickland said. “I have never seen a presidential campaign in Ohio come anywhere close to where this campaign is, organizationally and in terms of having actual man and woman power in the field.”
To reach out to rural and suburban areas, the Obama campaign is recruiting “neighborhood team leaders” to build networks of local volunteers to persuade voters on face-to-face, instead of relying on television advertisements alone. There is one leader for each of the designated 1,200 neighborhoods in Ohio, which contains 5 to 10 precincts, according to Pickrell.
First, the team leader assembles a neighborhood volunteers and then sends them to knock and call on homes to persuade voters. Pickrell said this operation is the heart of the Ohio campaign.
“This is really the crux of it,” Pickrell said. “The neighbor to neighbor approach is exactly the way we need to go about it here to win.”
Pickrell said office openings in far-flung areas have attracted great enthusiasm from locals, like the 300 who turned out in Lima for the Obama office opening.
For all of the enthusiasm, Strickland said Obama won’t win every county, but that isn’t the absolute goal.
“I want to be candid with you,” Strickland said. “Is Senator Obama going to win every county? Is he going to win every region? Probably not, but in some of these heavily Republican counties, we can go from 29 percent to perhaps 38 percent. And in some counties we can go from 38 percent to 44 percent. So I’m confident that the strategy that’s being followed here will be effective because it’s going to be an attempt to reach every voter in every part of Ohio.”
It’s so refreshing to see a Democratic campaign for President that actually gets it. Some have criticized the Obama campaign for using resources in long-shot states like Georgia and Montana, but it’s clear they are not neglecting the swing states.
This number is disturbing. Some outsourcing is inevitable in modern warfare, but the idea that so much money is being spent on private firms means that we’ve increased the number of firms that profit from warfare.
We already have a military industrial complex, where weapons firms lobby our elected officials and drive more military spending than we need. Yet these firms have more of a long-term interest in building our military strength. With private contractors taking over military support operations, you now have a situation where billions of dollars are at stake and are dependent on military action. War means huge profits.
Unfortunately, we all know that this will result in some level of corruption. That always happens when the government doles out huge contracts, and the problem worsens when you have an incompetent administration. Even more disturbing, we now have a situation where billions are tied to continued military operations. It’s naive to think this will have no effect on decisions that should be based strictly on national interest and matters of life and death.
The amount of waste discovered so far in Iraq has been stunning. A new administration will need to take a close look at how we dole out money, and whether the government needs to put the brakes on this outsourcing trend.
This interesting news comes courtesy of the Wall Street Journal editorial page:
The underreported economic news of the week is that Barack Obama favors a stronger dollar. Even better, he thinks a stronger greenback would help to reduce oil prices.
That at least is what the Democratic Presidential candidate told a town hall forum in Parma, Ohio, on Tuesday. “If we had a strengthening of the dollar, that would help” reduce fuel costs, he said, according to a Reuters dispatch ignored by most of the media.
Barack Obama won’t get many cheers from the Wall Street Journal, but he’s completely right about the dollar. Frankly, I’m surprised he hasn’t stressed the dollar issue more. It’s hard to think of a more powerful symbol of American decline under George W. Bush than the destructive and embarassing devaluation of the dollar.
The value of the dollar and the turmoil in the Middle East are two important factors in the rise in oil prices. Yes, increased demand is also part of the problem, but everything costs more if the dollar declines in value, the the sabre rattling with respect to Iran and the fiasco in Iraq have also driven up prices.
Now we have some Republicans crowing that oil is down to $120 per barrel now that they are talking about drilling. That’s beyond ridiculous. The bubble in oil occured under the “watch” of a Republican president who promised to control oil prices.
Obama needs to pound this theme of the value of the dollar. It’s the easiest way to explain why we need a change.
He claims he’s not the father of the child, but’s he’s finally come clean on the affair.
What a fool. We shouldn’t be shocked, but it’s amazing that he would run for President and still engage in this behavior.
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