2008 Election

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Future First Ladies

Regardless of what the McCain camp thinks, they are getting favored treatment.  Imagine if Michelle Obama had lied about her siblings.  Imagine the uproar.  Now look at the NPR story about Cindy McCain:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93708729

Cindy evidently has half siblings she has never mentioned and, along with her father, has decided to pretend do not exist.  She can say all she wants that she isn’t a “into” politics and that she is not running for office.  Both probably true statements.  But Mrs. Mcain, your husband is running which means that if he gets elected, you will have no choice but to live under a microscope.

 I’m waiting for the media other than public radio to pick up on this.  Thank you, Kathleen Portalski for stepping forward.  And thank you NPR for running the story.

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Clinton, Obama and Race

I’ve been reading this morning about Mark Penn.  Colbert I. King has an excellent column in today’s Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081502825.html?hpid=opinionsbox1  King dissects the Penn memo on using race and points out that the content could be a conversation between Klan members.

 I started out as a Bill Richardson supporter, but because I’m a political junkie was following all the campaigns.  The more I read about the staff supporting Hillary Clinton, the more I understand how poorly she was served and why she lost.  I have no idea how people like Penn were hired for her campaign, but I suspect they were FOB (Friends of Bill).  The nomination was hers to win and, with the help of her “advisors” hers to lose.  I would have loved to see a woman run for the nomination, but never supported Hillary.  I’m now beginning to understand why I felt uneasy about her. I understand that part of politics in winning, but the idea that someone on her campaign actually thought about using race against Obama makes me feel slightly ill. 

And now the Republicans are making fun of Obama’s vacation and his having been raised in Hawaii as being somehow unAmerican.  Haven’t they noticed that Hawaii is a state?

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Catching Up

So, I changed the title of the blog to FortLeft – Bob is FortRight so mine probably reflects my political views more than his which mostly reflects that he thinks he is right 99% of the time.

The Red Sox are hanging in for the wild card and we still have no VP announcement.  Hillary Clinton’s name will be placed in nomination after which she will urge her delegates to move to Obama.  Will this be another embarrassing moment for the Democratic Party?

I got a poll call the other night about local races.  Do I think Deval Patrick is going a good job? Yes.  Am I going to vote for Dianne Wilkerson? Yes.  Will I change my mind? No.  I know that Dianne has had problems with finances, both campaign and personal. But she is so good on the issues.  A leader in the fight to legalize gay marriage and then to repeal the 1913 law I wrote about in an earlier entry.  A big supporter 10 years ago when we were establishing the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women – and I could go on. And she is still interested in very local ideas.  It will be an interesting discussion at the Ward 11 Democratic Committee endorsement meeting.  Sonja Chang Diaz is a would be member of the committee and I don’t know what the protocol is, but I need to find out.  It would be extremely extremely awkward if she is in the room.

Things are finally picking up here in the Obama world.  There is an organizing meeting for Roxbury next week which I will be attending.  We need to coordinate Ward 11 activities – we will be supporting him as the nominee – and the campaign’s activities.  Should be interesting.