Angry Brown Guy » Obama

Politics and Soccer

angrybrownguy — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:09:00 +0000

A couple of good quotes I heard from Keith Olbermann recently.

“We as citizens must at some point ignore partisanship, not that we may prosper as a nation, but that merely we may function as a nation.”

“You Are Campaigning As If Barack Obama Were The Democrat And You Were The Republican” – (video below)

On a little tangent, gonna talk about a soccer player from Stevens who graduated and is playing professionally in Cyprus. Unfortunately I only really got to see him play here for a year but when I did he simply played like the field was his to dominate and that he did. Nick “Niko” Gkionis was a center back for the Stevens Ducks from 2003 to 2006 and was named a first-team All-American by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America his senior year. He also sent me a link to the 35-second preview for a soccer mix-tape that he has been working on and I have that embedded below. I can’t wait for the entire thing to be released. He has also been working in conjunction with Brian Granata of Stevens Athletics to provide an inside look at life on the road and life as a professional soccer player through a weekly blog entitled “Beyond the Pond.” His most recent post is from yesterday, make sure to go take a look.

Goal: One Million People

angrybrownguy — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:17:00 +0000

Just got this email from the Obama Campaign and they are above 900,000 people who have donated to his campaign already, well on his way to a million people. 1 Million People?!?!

That is quite an accomplishment to make for a junior senator out of Illinois. You know what? I think I am going to be one of those 1,000,000+ people. Will you?

Faraz –

We learned something extraordinary since I wrote to you last night.

We’ve crunched all the numbers and discovered that we are within striking distance of something historic: one million people donating to this campaign.

Think about that … nearly one million people taking ownership of this movement, five dollars or twenty-five dollars at a time.

We’re already more than 900,000 strong, including over half-a-million donating so far this year. This unprecedented foundation of support has built a campaign that has shaken the status quo and proven that ordinary people can compete in a political process too often dominated by special interests.

Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven’t taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. Our campaign is responsible to no one but the people.

One million donors would be a remarkable feat — something that’s never been done before in a presidential primary and something no one ever thought would be possible for us. And you still have the opportunity to be a part of it.

If you make a donation right now, one of those 900,000 donors has promised to give again in order to match your first gift. You can double the impact of your first donation — and you can even choose to exchange a note about why you are part of this movement.

Be one of the million who will own a piece of this campaign before the potentially decisive March 4th contests:

https://donate.barackobama.com/match

We started this improbable journey a little over a year ago in Springfield, Illinois.

And because you’ve joined together to make your voices heard, this journey isn’t looking as improbable anymore.

Since our victory on February 5th, we’ve won ten straight contests.

But on March 4th, we face a huge challenge in Texas and Ohio, who will vote along with Rhode Island and Vermont. We are behind in the big states and need as many people involved as possible if we’re going to win.

If we can reach our goal of one million donors by March 4th, we can send a powerful message that the Washington establishment and big-money interests cannot ignore.

As one million people with one voice, we can tell them that their days of dominating Washington are coming to an end — the old politics are crumbling and a new voice is breaking through. Our voice.

Will you make a matching donation now to make it happen?

https://donate.barackobama.com/match

I learned the power of ordinary people coming together as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.

I worked side-by-side with people who had been laid off from steel plants that were moved overseas. These were people who needed new jobs to rebuild their lives, and their political leaders were ignoring them.

But even though the odds were stacked against them, they discovered that by coming together with one voice, they could no longer be ignored.

When we launched this campaign, we knew we were up against similar odds. We knew we’d be running against a massive political machine with deep ties to the Washington establishment.

We knew it wouldn’t be easy.

But if we can do this, we’re not just going to win an election. We’re going to change our country.

Thank you so much,

Barack

Clinton: Still No Congratulations For Obama

angrybrownguy — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:31:00 +0000

Interesting piece of article on CNN earlier. Now with Obama getting the delegate lead even when you factor in the super delegate votes, you certainly should not expect any congratulations now until the race is done.

EL PASO, Texas (CNN) – For the second election night in a row, Hillary Clinton failed to acknowledge or congratulate Barack Obama after he won the day in dominating fashion.

On Tuesday in El Paso, hours after Virginia had been called for Obama, she stuck to her “Texas campaign kickoff” message and did not stray from an energetic, Lone Star-themed stump speech. She did mention Obama by name, only to chide his health care plan.

On Saturday night in Richmond, Virginia, Clinton spoke to a crowd of thousands at the state’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, but she ignored Obama’s quartet of blowout primary and caucus wins that day as well (Obama also won the Maine caucuses the next day).

The courtesy of conceding a primary or caucus loss — and then congratulating your opponent — is by no means required. But it has become standard practice during campaign season.

Clinton congratulated Obama and John Edwards after their first and second place finishes in the Iowa caucuses. Obama returned the favor in New Hampshire, saying Clinton “did an outstanding job.” That courtesy continued through the early states.

But as the race has shifted to a delegate chase with dozens of states in play around the country, the notion of congratulating one’s opponent seems, for Clinton, to have fallen by the wayside.

– CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby

Key Dates to look out for: State (Delegates)

March 4: Ohio (161) and Texas (228) Primaries
April 22: Pennsylvania (188)
May 6: North Carolina (134)

Those are the last four states left with triple digit delegates left and with the total difference still barely in double digits, I expect March 4 to be crucial. Obama needs to make inroads in Texas and certainly this momentum will help.

To think it is February 13th now and people expected this race to be over after over a month ago following Iowa and New Hampshire. How crucial would Florida and Michigan primaries be, had they not decided to defy party rules and push their primaries before the February 5th deadline… The world will never know.

Updated: Super Duper Tuesday

angrybrownguy — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:44:00 +0000

Barack Obama leads in the delegates that have been voted by ACTUAL VOTERS!!

The only reason Hilary Clinton is leading is because of the Superdelegates where she has an extra 87 delegates to boost her. What can you do when the system is designed to favor those who are in it and makes it very difficult for any one from outside to come in.

Super Duper Tuesday

angrybrownguy — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 07:21:00 +0000

(paraphrased from an email sent to a friend overseas summarizing Super Tuesday)

So the night started off interestingly early with Obama picking up Georgia with like 88% of the black vote and he only lost the white vote like 60-40. Clinton quickly replied with wins in new Jersey and new York both by 15 points. Obama won his state by 32 points. Obama picked up quality wins in Missouri, Connecticut and Kansas but Clinton has California, Massachusetts and Arizona to battle back.

I really hate the Super Delegate system where the party establishment has votes on who to give the delegates (look at attached picture below). Based on total voting delegates only! Clinton has a lead of 475 to 451 (only up by 24 delegates) but if you add super delegates 668 to 557 (lead goes up to 111)*. Gives Hilary quite the boost.

So the democratic race goes on with states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas still to vote all of them have triple digit delegates so we’ll see.

*note: numbers subject to change as more districts report numbers.

For the republicans, McCain kind of kicked butt but Huckabee surprised me picking up several states (WVA, TEN, ARK, ALA)… they are talking about a McCain / Huckabee ticket which is quite scary for America…

Super Tuesday – Weekend Polling

angrybrownguy — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:44:00 +0000

I apologize for the brevity of my diary; however, I think the results speak for themselves. Zogby has some pretty surprising results in his latest polls, which are to be released tomorrow.

Both parties have staged tight, seesawing battles for the nominations for November’s presidential election. Clinton, the New York senator, and Obama split the first four Democratic contests — Obama won Iowa and South Carolina, while Clinton won New Hampshire and Nevada.

In California, the poll found Obama led Clinton by 45 percent to 41 percent, with a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points. Clinton held statistically insignificant 1-point leads on Obama in New Jersey and Missouri, well within the margin of error of 3.4 percentage points in both surveys.

It would be an extraordinary feat to see Obama come within 1 point of Hillary in New Jersey, considering that it’s her backyard. Hillary also had a huge lead in Missouri just over a week ago, but now it seems that it has evaporated into thin air.

Furthermore, Obama appears to be consolidating his lead in Georgia.

Obama, an Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, has a comfortable 20-point lead in Georgia fueled by a more than 3-to-1 advantage over Clinton among black voters.

From the polling results, we can ascertain that this race is precipitously shifting in favor of Obama.

Update: Many people are criticizing Zogby and some of their criticisms may be fair. however, the Field Poll will be coming out tomorrow and it will also show that the race in California is a dead heat, thus corroborating the results of Zogby’s poll that shows a dramatic shift towards Obama.

Taken from Daily Kos.

Fundrasing Spike

angrybrownguy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 02:17:25 +0000

Well I guess here are the first signs of the election race post-South Carolina…

A source inside the Obama campaign says the candidate’s web site has seen one of its best hours tonight, raising $525,000 in one hour. A senior aide inside the Obama campaign said the candidate’s site saw its “highest peak” tonight in both online donations and traffic, “bigger than after Iowa, bigger than after New Hampshire.”

The Obama campaign measures online donations every 15 minutes, and the source said that online money was pouring in at the rate of more than $500,000 per hour. – Washington Post

Gotta wait and see until Super Duper Tuesday to see if it actually makes a difference.