Obama

[cos]

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is election day in 24 states, including: Massachusetts, California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona, Kansas, Arkansas, and other states where few of my readers live :)

I'm not gonna have a chance today to write a real post about why I endorse Obama, so here are some links to explain or illustrate why I support Obama.

• xkcd's endorsement of Obama
  
• Obama's speech on religion and politics to a religious audience. Long but excellent, watch the whole thing!
  
• Because it works! - Obama's conflict-resolution approach
  
• Former president of Chicago's NOW chapter on why she switched to Obama (short video)
  
• Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters (Andrew Sullivan)
  
• Endorsements from the Boston Globe and from Blue Mass Group
  
• The Choice - why progressives should choose Obama over Clinton
  
• Edit: Lawrence Lessig (EFF board member, founder of Creative Commons, Stanford Law professor) endorses Obama in this 20min video
  

Geek, Tech, Open Government

• Obama plans to have a Tech czar to "ensure government officials hold open meetings, broadcast live webcasts of those meetings, and use blogging software, wikis and open comments to communicate policies with Americans".
  
• Obama supports Net Neutrality - and understands why.
  
• xkcd's endorsement of Obama
  

War

• Obama's early opposition to the Iraq war
  
• Obama's 2002 speech on Iraq
  
• Get Your War On artist David Rees endorses Obama for his opposition to cluster bombs in civilian areas.
  

Rule of Law

• Obama's views on presidential power & the Constitution
  
• Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees endorse Obama en masse
  
• Judge him by his laws - "Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused. Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped."
  

Comments

[japlady.livejournal.com]

correct me if I'm wrong but he intends to gut NASA

[cos]

I highly doubt it, and I've heard nothing of the sort.

... but since you mentioned it, I Googled around a bit and found a pretty good policy statement on space exploration from him.

[boutell.livejournal.com]

What's conspicuous by its absence is the manned Mars program. But I haven't heard tell of any other candidate getting behind that right now.

[cos]

Yeah, the feeling is that unmanned programs give a lot more value for the amount of money spent, in terms of hard science. Manned programs are very expensive and would come at the expense of a lot of other things. I think a manned Mars program could be valuable if it were a big national project like the original moon landings, but that we've got too many other better candidates for a big national science/tech rallying cry right now.

[japlady.livejournal.com]

http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/obamas_nasa_plan_gets_little_p.php

[japlady.livejournal.com]

That came from brian who works at NASA

http://brian1789.livejournal.com/

[japlady.livejournal.com]

http://www.space.com/news/071231-candidate-positions.html

[seborn.livejournal.com]

The comments on this post have a whole pile of links on space exploration, Obama, and Clinton.

[yix.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you guys brought up the NASA stuff, I was interested in that too.

Also, I really like your new icon. :)

I'm looking forward to our caucus on Saturday, even if it's after the big deal tuesday.

[cos]

Since Obama and Clinton are running so close, it's unlikely either of them will lock up the nomination tomorrow, so the next few states will also be a big deal.

My new userpic is from a photo underwatercolor took, and yeah I like it a lot too!

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Barack Obama's energy policy is weak and full of platitudes. That's why I won't be voting for him.

[ratontheroad.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this collection.

This is my first time getting involve with any sort of campaign, and working for Obama's campaign in C. Springs began to open my eyes a bit to the political process. But one thing it did not is get me good info on Obama to give to others... they don't have the time to train you in a lot of the details, just get you to move people.

Since you have more experience with this sort of thing, what else might I consider if I'm wanting to donate my time and energy to the Obama campaign?

[cos]

Well, you're in Colorado, which is a Super Tuesday state. The main job of a campaign on election day is to get its already-identified supporters to the polls. As many wise campaigners have said, "it's not the candidate who has the most supporters who wins; it's the candidate who has more supporters who go to the polls and vote."

I have known cases where candidates with clearly more supporters have lost elections because their voters didn't turn out at high enough a rate. That's especially a risk for Obama, because he wins heavily among under-25 voters who have no habit of voting and turn out at dismally low rates, while Clinton wins heavily among over-65, many of whom never miss an election no matter how small.

On election day, the campaign doesn't need your help persuading anyone nearly as much as it needs your help reminding and bugging and asking and even pleading with identified supporters to get them to actually vote. If you can lend some time making phone calls or going door to door, that's where it's at.

But, do remember to ask your close friends and relatives. You have more influence on them than anyone, and you could still persuade them. Find some good links or passages that you think will matter to them, add a little bit of your own, and email each one individually, tonight or early tomorrow. Your parents and close relatives, especially.

After your state's primary is over, then there will be other things to do, but other than sending something to people you know well, right now it's all about getting out the vote, not persuasion.

[merinslips.livejournal.com]

I get this sinking feeling that because you're supporting him, he's not going to win. :/ You don't seem representative of America... :( And I want him to win, based on all the stuff I've read about him because of you.

[cos]

No individual is representative of America, so you could make that statement about anyone.

However, candidates I support sometimes do win. And sometimes come pretty close.