Barack Obama's AIDS Advocacy

By John Nichols

Barack Obama has always spoken well and wisely about the challenges posed by the HIV/AIDS crisis, and about the opportunity the United States has to address them.

Two years ago on World AIDS Day, before he was a candidate for the presidency, Obama delivered a remarkable speech at the "2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church" at California's Saddleback Church. As part of his remarks, the senator said:

We are all sick because of AIDS - and we are all tested by this crisis. It is a test not only of our willingness to respond, but of our ability to look past the artificial divisions and debates that have often shaped that response. When you go to places like Africa and you see this problem up close, you realize that it's not a question of either treatment or prevention - or even what kind of prevention - it is all of the above. It is not an issue of either science or values - it is both. Yes, there must be more money spent on this disease. But there must also be a change in hearts and minds; in cultures and attitudes. Neither philanthropist nor scientist; neither government nor church, can solve this problem on their own - AIDS must be an all-hands-on-deck effort.

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December 1, 2008

American Muslims Mourn Mumbai Violence

By John Nichols

There will be many expressions of appropriate mourning and condolence when the final toll is determined from the terrorist attacks on Mumbai. The terrorists who struck the Indian city killed mostly locals in a brutal multi-day killing spree that left more than 160 dead and close to 400 severely wounded. But the targeting of westerners and religious minorities -- including a rabbi and others associated with a synagogue and Jewish community center in a city where Jews have lived bh.

Because of the sectarian focus of the attacks, one of the responses that is especially worth noting is the one from the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the twenty-year-old civil rights group that advocates "for the the integration of Islam into American pluralism, and for a positive, constructive relationship between American Muslims and their representatives."

Here's MPAC's statement:

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November 28, 2008

Obama's Trickle-Down Equanimity

By Leslie Savan

The other day I noticed that my husband had for the tenth time ruined the slick seasoned surface of my cast-iron skillet by scrubbing it with Brillo. I started to get ticked off, building up a tiny tornado of fury; boy, am I ever going to tell him. Again.

But then I thought, Would Obama let this get to him? That tall cool drink o' distilled water would never blast Michelle for a domestic faux-pas like this, but here I am going ballistic because my spouse tried to clean a pot? Then poof! (or plouffe!): my anger was gone.

Not to get all hagiographic about it, much less to liken the President-elect to "The One" (the name the McCainiac right sarcastically used to paint him as the false Messiah), but Barack Obama's calm, nonreactionary response to the worst that politics and economics can throw at him has begun to establish a new emotional policy: trickle-down equanimity.

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November 28, 2008

Indian Crisis Tests Obama

By John Nichols

This transition period was supposed to be all about getting a grip on the financial crisis -- and it looked this week as if Barack Obama has succeeded sufficiently to take the Thanksgiving holiday off. But on Wednesday, the president-elect was reminded that he is inheriting messes far beyond Wall Street.

The devastating attacks in Mumbai -- which have left more than 100 dead and three times that number seriously wounded -- have put the war on terror back in competition for Obama's urgent attention. And the reported focus of the attackers in U.S. and European visitors to India makes this anything but a foreign affair.

Wednesday's developments do not quite qualify as the "test" famously anticipated during the fall campaign by Joe Biden, the outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair who will now serve as Obama's loose-lipped vice president. But Obama and his aides are scrambling to refocus after a key American ally suffered a devastating attack that John McLaughlin, the former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency refers to as "India's 9-11."

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November 26, 2008

A Secretary of Defense We Can't Believe In

By John Nichols

Barack Obama in February, 2008: "I don't want to just end the war; I want to end the mindset that got us into war."

Barack Obama in November, 2008: "Never mind."

All indications are that the man who has run George Bush's nightmarish occupation of Iraq -- along with the downward spiral that is Afghanistan -- will now manage Barack Obama's nightmarish occupation of Iraq and the new president's plans to turn Afghanistan into a full-blown quagmire.

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November 26, 2008

Placeholder Senator: Ted Kaufman, D-Biden

By John Nichols

While President-elect Barack Obama has surrendered his US senate seat and said he'll stand back and let Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich name a successor, Vice President-elect Joe Biden is not letting go of his senate seat quite so easily. The Delaware Democrat plans to retain the seat he has held for almost 36 years until he takes his new job. And when he does give the seat up, Biden will hand it off to a short-term appointee who will quit in two years.

The placeholder senator, Ted Kaufman, served for nineteen years as Biden's chief of staff before becoming a co-chair of Biden's vice-presidential transition team. He will be appointed in mid-January by Delaware Governor Ruth Minner, a Democrat closely ties to Biden who is retiring at the end of this year, and will serve only until a 2010 special election.

Kaufman has announced that he won't be running in that election. "I also want to make clear that I am very comfortable with retiring after 2 years," says the senator-to-be. "I don't think Delaware's appointed Senator should spend the next two years running for office."

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November 24, 2008

Eyeing Obama Era, DailyKos Launches Blog to Press Congress

By Ari Melber

Prominent writers for DailyKos, the country's top liberal blog, are launching a new site to scrutinize and pressure the Democratic Congress.

This week, as most politicos focus on appointments in the incoming Obama administration, DailyKos bloggers began a "soft launch" for Congress Matters, which promises a "community-based political watch party" for Democrats on Capitol Hill.

"It'll be a place where we'll try to explain Congressional rules and procedure so that the netroots community gets a better handle on it and can become more effective advocates for their priorities," said David Waldman, an attorney and former Congressional aide who blogs on the front page of DailyKos under the name Kagro X.

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November 24, 2008

A Diverse Young Coalition Behind Obama

By Cora Currier

Additional analysis of exit polls from November 4th confirms that young voters were the most diverse group of the electorate, with larger percentages identifying as Hispanic, African-American and gay or lesbian than the voting population as a whole. However, a major discrepancy remains between young people with a college education and those without. This analysis-- carried out by CIRCLE, a civic research group-- found that 70 percent of young voters who went to the polls had attended college, even though only 57 percent of Americans under 30 have gone to college. Similarly, only 6 percent of young voters failed to graduate high school, while 14 percent of the entire youth population falls in this category.

There are some obvious reasons for this. CIRCLE has done extensive reports on the state of civic education in American high schools, finding that civic classes were spotty in most public schools, and particularly those in poorer and minority areas. At the same time, they found that individuals who had taken civic education in high school were more likely to be registered to vote, more likely to volunteer, and more likely to trust in the political process. At the campaign level, young people are much easier to reach on campus, leading campaigns to overwhelmingly target college students. Without a central meeting place like a campus, it takes a lot more effort by campaigns to reach out to non-college young people-- something campaigns need to work on.

But despite this discrepancy, young voters at every education level threw their support behind Barack Obama. CIRCLE's analysis confirms what we already knew-- that Obama drew support from young people across all sorts of demographic lines, including young people who identify as conservatives. The Democratic party as a whole also benefited this election-- more young people now identify as Democrats (45 percent) than the population as a whole (39 percent). Most telling, it seems, is this figure: half of young voters said they would be "excited" by an Obama win, compared to 30 percent of all voters and just 20 percent of voters over 60. Obama has certainly captured this generation, and I'll be writing more in the coming weeks about how their involvement will play out post-election.

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November 24, 2008

Soggy Bottom

By Ari Berman

In a Democratic primary debate in December 2007, Barack Obama was asked by the editor of the Des Moines Register: "With relatively little foreign policy experience of your own, how will you rely on so many Clinton advisors and still deliver the kind of break from the past that you're promising voters?"

"I want to hear that," Hillary Clinton folksily interjected.

"Well, Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me, as well," Obama responded with a smile on his face.

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November 24, 2008

It's 3 a.m., Hillary's on the Phone

By John Nichols

O.K., so if the phone call comes at 3 a.m., Barack Obama will be able to transfer it to Hillary Clinton.

At the ugliest stage of the race between Obama and Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, the Clinton's campaign aired a commercial featuring images of children sleeping peacefully as a soothing male voice said, "It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone in the White House and it's ringing. Something's happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it's someone who already knows the world's leaders, knows the military -- someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world. It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?"

An image of Clinton holding a phone appeared on the screen.

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November 21, 2008