Did you read Sugar’s blog yet? Read it HERE.
I want to reiterate that the Obama campaign has staged these endorsement events from the beginning, with a precision that modern engineering can only envy. Before Powell, the most spectacular was perhaps Richardson. For Powell, there has to be something of value to be gained. We can speculate, but time will probably clarify this. For Obama, an endorsement like this attacks the following tenants and tries to direct them elsewhere:
1. The group of people who have said: “ I’m a Republican, I would have voted for Powell and he’s black!” Now the campaign can say: well, if Powell has endorsed Obama, and you agree with Powell’s principles, you must be able to vote for Obama, or are you really a racist? Did you just say that to avoid voting for the black man in the first place?
2. The group of people who have said: “I’m a Republican and I think McCain’s military values have meaning. I think he would be a better commander in chief”. Now the campaign can say: if Colin Powell thinks Obama would be better and he’s military, why don’t you? Look how the Bush Administration duped him. Bush’s Republicans are not to be trusted.
The second argument goes a long way in relieving Powell of culpability in the Iran WMD question.
Sugar makes a final comment:
“I can’t wait for this to be over”
Wow-do I agree that that sentiment! I find myself asking though, whether PUMAs ought to even use the upcoming date as a signpost. If we think election fraud has occurred, if we think the wrong person will be in office, if we think caucuses must go, then November 4th is just another day. We must make and mark our own signposts, event dates and goals. We are in this for the long haul and the growth of principle in the party.
David Brooks said, in his article on Big Government, that the backlash would be next. We must learn to surf, and that means visualizing the next wave while we are riding in the trough.
I Own My Vote, PUMA, The Denver Group, Just Say No Deal
Grab and Keel 
No surprise. About 98% of black people will be voting for Barack Obama. Yet, ironically they are the ones who are complaining about racism.
Obama is no Bill Clinton. Clinton is a de-regualtor just like John McCain. Clinton was the one who introduced NAFTA, which McCain supports.
Obama is more of a extreme leftist. $1 trillion in new spending, more government programs and interventions, sending welfare checks to 45% of the 95% of the people in his tax plan because 45% of those people don’t even get taxed.
Politicians like Obama are such pimps. They promise to spend a trillion dollars on you, but they don’t tell you that they are using YOUR MONEY!
Obama’s Black Liberation Theology is based on Marxism for black people, the foundations of Communism. Even Bill Ayers was an extreme leftist.
Our economy is very important, McCain is better for our economy. I hope people get educated before they vote.
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Tina
Let’s disentangle this a little.
The black voting block tends to vote democrat, no matter who is running.
The black population is approximately 13% of the entire USA population. So, even if every single black person voted for Obama, this alone would not win him the race.
Around 79% of the US population lives in an urban area. While it is true, for historical reasons, relating to industrialization, the end of the civil war, and the countries need for workers, many blacks have migrated and settled in urban areas, this is not true of all. Other factors have contributed to the urban vote, which has swung heavily for Obama this season. Not the least of this trend is the white, asian, Hispanic, etc. tech worker, and upper income folk who can afford to actually still live in cities.
On a district-by-district basis Obama has been able to capture these urban areas, but so did Clinton and Kerry.
African American men are still incarcerated at a rate of six times to that of white and three times that of Hispanic men. Most of these men will never vote again unless more state laws are changed. Since this has been going on for a while, the actual voting pool may be proportionately much smaller than the 13% of population.
Instead of race; income, education, martial status and age, are thought to be better examples of voting predictors.
More older people vote, more women vote, more college grads vote proportionally to the rest of the population. Colin Powell’s endorsement and it’s timing says very little about him as a black man and much more about who it’s intended to impress. That is the white or Hispanic still undecided older voter; especially a moderate Republican. This is the type of voter most likely to show up at the polls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout
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Tina:
I agree that Obama is no Bill Clinton.
However, despite the disinformation campaign by the Obamacons in the primary against Hillary Clinton, Obama also supports NAFTA. In fact, although there were least 14 documented NAFTA attacks on her web site continuing into May, he agrees with her recommendations for NAFTA in the February, Ohio debate link below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/politics/26text-debate.html?ref=politics&pagewanted=print
I’m not sure I would agree with your idea that President Clinton was a deregulator. However, he did work in a bipartisan way with a Republican Congress in a conservative trending time.
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Tina:
I’m a leftist. Obama is much to the right of me. I believe in the power of government to provide the infrastructure, education and neutral social institutions our country needs. I believe a leftist government will be better able to protect the environment, and direct the future of transportation in a much better way what than we have been reduced to. I believe in regional planning, and in a rebuilding of federal rights over states, human rights for all. I’m horrified that T Boone Pickens is angling for the future of our energy. I believe most of us pay too little in taxes to provide the police and firefighters we need.
I believe that most of us should be screaming about the impoverished wages we receive instead. The one trillion to which you refer does not relate to Obama. 65% of the population is currently working but has insufficient income to thrive. Since the influx of women into the workplace, more families than ever rely on a two-person income that is only 1.75% of the wage. That wage has not risen significantly in 50 years.
As unemployment rises women will be more affected. They again will be most likely laid off or will retain very underpaid jobs. Welfare and/or food stamps may be the only option. There is every reason to believe that these programs will increase in the near future BECAUSE OF THE ECONOMY.
I agree with you however, that whatever Obama or McCain are promising, it is likely to radically change in Office BECAUSE OF THE ECONOMY.
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Tina:
I agree with you that there is an historic thread that roots some tenets of Black Liberation Theology with elements of Marxism. My disagreement would be, however, the conflation of religion and social work, in which Wright’s old church, I believe, impacts the thinking of Obama. In this way Obama’s viewpoint is very much like Bush. I think that in general, federally funded and state funded social services should not flow through religious organizations. Obama’s viewpoint here is conservative.
I don’t care what Wright or Pfluger said or did. I understand it, in it’s historical context. I have always cared about how Obama handled his relationship with an old man, a marine, his mentor, whom he left in the basement the day of his announcement. I have always cared that he did not plan, as he knew for over a year that he must, on how to handle his relationship with that church.
I have always cared that he used Wright and left him “under the bus”, even while exploring the heights of grandiloquent racial rhetoric.
I don’t care about William Ayers. I understand his historical context. I care about Obama’s attempt to minimize his relationship.
I do not see his relationships as indicative of personal leftism. I do see the win at all costs behavior ascribed to liberals. I do not see these activities as showing fine diplomatic skills or personal values. I see an opportunist.
Therefore, I see Obama as cipher, who will be informed by those elements that are most to his advantage. In this respect, it will not be Marxism; it will not be those who participated in revolutionary or anarchist behavior. It will be big business, economists, the most powerful, and the easiest decisions. It will also be about the misogynist media that do strange moneymaking things, like print stories about Ayers on the day of 9/11, and then pound Clinton and Palin for mentioning him.
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