Post-DNC Interview (NPR Broadcast)

Tavis Smiley Analysis of Obama Speech

No Black Connection: Texas Delegate Anne Price Mills

RISKY MOVE! TO PICK PALIN

On Friday, August 29, 2008, Senator John McCain and Republican strategist took a unprecedented and risky move by choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the Vice President Nominee.

Gov. Palin, 44, who's in her first term as governor, contradicts all the criticism that Republicans have charged toward Senator Barack Obama claiming that he is too inexperienced to run for President. August 29, also marks the birthday of Senator McCain, 72. So the internal question is, if he cannot fulfill his duties as president, will she be able to lead the country?

Gov Palin was mayor and a council member of the small town of Wasilla and was chairman of the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates Alaska's oil and gas resources, in 2003 and 2004. Her biography hardly lends to support the notion that she is ready to be the Vice President nominee.

The PROS- She will attempt to mobilize the base of white women voters 35-55 (and African-American women) that strongly supported Senator Hillary Clinton. Palin has a strong ideological position on issues, especially on abortion. Most important, she is a woman. The legislative record of Senator McCain shows that he has not been an advocate of issues dealing with Women’s Rights. Will she take advantage of the past Obama/Clinton rift?

The CONS- She is highly inexperienced and while the gubernatorial office is a breeding ground for the Presidency, she has only been in office a few years. She is the first woman to be nominated for vice president as a Republican and only the second to run for vice president on a major party ticket, after Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. Did her selection provide the Republican party with a stronger presidential ticket?

A Speech For the Ages

Did the Clintons Do Enough?

Clinton: "No way. No how. No McCain."

Here's the speech:

I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack Obama.

My friends, it is time to take back the country we love.

Whether you voted for me or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines.

This is a fight for the future. And it’s a fight we must win.

I haven’t spent the past 35 years in the trenches advocating for children, campaigning for universal health care, helping parents balance work and family, and fighting for women’s rights at home and around the world ... to see another Republican in the White House squander the promise of our country and the hopes of our people.

And you haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership.

No way. No how. No McCain.

Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our president.

Michelle Obama at 2008 Democratic National Convention

McCain Ad Targeting Biden

Did Obama Choose a Racist?

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Biden later recanted those statements saying, "Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that the Democratic or Republican Party has produced at least since I've been around," Biden said on the call. "And he's fresh. He's new. He's smart. He's insightful. And I really regret that some have taken totally out of context my use of the world 'clean.'"

Education in the Post-Katrina Era

Hurricane Katrina struck at a critical moment in the evolution of the contemporary education-reform movement. President Bush’s education initiative, No Child Left Behind, had shined a light on the underperformance of poor minority students across the country by requiring, for the first time, that a school successfully educate not just its best students but its poor and minority students too in order to be counted as successful.

The city’s disastrously low-performing school system was almost entirely washed away in the flood — many of the buildings were destroyed, the school board was taken over and all the teachers were fired. What is being built in its place is an educational landscape unlike any other, a radical experiment in reform. More than half of the city’s public-school students are now being educated in charter schools, publicly financed but privately run, and most of the rest are enrolled in schools run by an unusually decentralized and rapidly changing school district.

In 2005, Louisiana’s public schools ranked anywhere from 43rd to 46th in the federal government’s various state-by-state rankings of student achievement, and the schools in Orleans Parish, which encompasses the city of New Orleans, ranked 67th out of the 68 parishes in the state. The school system was monochromatically black — white students made up just 3 percent of the public-school population, most of them attending one of a handful of selective-enrollment magnet schools — and overwhelmingly poor as well; more than 75 percent of students had family incomes low enough to make them eligible for a subsidized lunch from the federal government. The dysfunction in the city’s school system extended well beyond the classroom: a revolving door for superintendents, whose average tenure lasted no more than a year; school officials indicted for bribery and theft; unexplained budget deficits; decaying buildings; almost three-quarters of the city’s schools slapped with an “academically unacceptable” rating from the state.

For many years now, the central debate in American education has been over just how much schools can do to improve the low rate of achievement among poor children. While it is true that for decades the children of New Orleans toiled in a substandard school system, they have also continually faced countless other obstacles to success — inadequate health care, poorly educated parents, exposure to high rates of violent crime and a popular culture that often denigrates mainstream achievement.

Was the school district spinning out of control? Were the needs of the children being met?

Excerpts from Paul Tough "A Teachable Moment"

Viable Professions

Fundamentals of the Economy

Obama Ad

R.I.P. Bernie Mac

Deracialization Campaign Strategy ---WILLIAM HOSTON

This strategy emerged in the early 1970s. Charles Hamilton first used it (1973) at a meeting of the National Urban League. Hamilton argued that to gain the necessary white support, blacks must address social issues with universal appeal. One such issue was “full employment,” which was considered an important issue facing both blacks and whites. Later, Hamilton (1977) used the concept in a paper presented to the Democratic party. This time, he advised presidential candidates to focus on issues that appealed across racial lines to gain more voter support.

Deracialization is a strategy designed to appeal to a broader audience. According to Barker and Jones (1994, 321), deracialization is “the practice of blacks articulating political demands in terms that are not racially specific so that they appeal to a broader group and presumably do not alienate those who are predisposed to oppose black efforts.” The practice of deracialization as a campaign strategy allows black candidates to avoid alienating the white electorate with race-specific campaign tactics.

Some scholars of deracialization suggest that this campaign strategy can become problematic (Barker and Jones 1994; Perry 1996). In a study of deracialization focusing on ten black political campaigns from 1989 to 1992, Perry (1996) found that deracialization may be counterproductive. He questions the quality of representation that black constituents would receive from black politicians that win through deracialized campaigns. Because deracialization is inconsistent with black candidates focusing on race-related issues, these candidates might often neglect the interest of their black constituents and thus alienate this part of the electorate.

Thus, the question is: Does the black population feel alienated?

William T. Hoston, Ph.D.

McCain Paints Obama Biblical

NYPD Cop Brutality