Tag Archives: Barack Obama

Coca on Obama's VP

Who I’m okay with:

Kathleen Sebelius (yes, I’m a homeboy)

Wesley Clark

Bill Richardson

Brian Schweitzer (my dark horse)

Not Cool

Joe Biden

Tim Kaine

Tom Daschle (not change)

Chuck Hagel

Very Not Cool

Sam Nunn

Hillary Clinton (sorry, still not over it)

Evan Bayh

On the Fence

Chris Dodd

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9/11, Fear, and Osama bin Laden, to 11/08, Hope, and Barack Obama

I remember 9/11 well. I was 18. I was heading of to college, about to, for the first time ever, live away from home. I’d decided to move to California, halfway across the country from my hometown of Overland Park, Kansas, and on 9/11, me and my dad were halfway to California. We were in Flagstaff, Arizona, actually, on a quick stopover to visit the Grand Canyon.

That morning I turned on the TV to check ESPN. Instead, I found out the world I’d be entering college into a world completely different than the one I’d graduated high school from. The first thought on my mind as I saw the twin towers in flames – “please, let it not be Arab terrorists.”

I want you all to think for a second – on those first few days, when America was twisted inside out. I knew about the Japanese internments during World War II, of the history of slavery and subsequent Jim Crow segregation that had only ended when my dad was my age. As a brown American, not of Arab origin, but fully aware of the fact that most Americans could not tell the difference, I honestly wondered for a few days whether America would accept me anymore.

Fear gripped me.

Osama Bin Laden. He was everywhere. Terrorism had become communism of our era. My generation now had it’s JFK moment. Fear was pervasive, onmipresent. Not far from where me and my dad spent the following night, September 12th, at a hotel where the receptionist’s eyes were glued to pictures of Bin Laden on the news, Balbir Singh, a Sikh-American, was murdered in an hate crime for refusing to remove his turban.

It could very easily have been me. That was the world those days.

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Congratulations, Senator Obama

You’ve not only made history, but you’ve restored my belief in the American dream and my country.

Now, let’s go change America.

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Our First Step

12 1/2 months ago, I stepped foot on American soil for the first time in over a year. I wasn’t wearing a flag lapel pin, and my passport had stamps from some rather unseemly countries (Turkey, the Emirates, Malaysia, to name a few), my hair was long, and I was going to live at home. But I knew then that, even though I had just finished a trip around the world, with experiences that I’m only now starting to understand, I was starting a far grander journey.

The journey to change America.

Last night, we took a powerful first step in that direction.

I travel with a slightly different perspective than most travelers. The world is a patchwork of disparate peoples, each with their own dynamic and fascinating history – and I only wanted to tap into this great collective of knowledge. So I went, from the picturesque battlefields of Gallipoli, where the seeds were planted that led to the great ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia only a decade ago. I visited the remote kingdom of Nepal, where the rapidly changing weather patterns were wreaking havoc on subsidence crops (a precursor to the food crisis today, I now realize).

I realized what power I had – I was from America. Six years of Bush had taken it’s toll on me, but I still believed that I could make a different. I just hadn’t tried hard enough.

Change isn’t easy. And last night, we took our first step towards Change we can believe in, and for the world, an America they can look up to once again. The next step – beating John McCain.

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Brushing off the Kitchen Sink

Classic

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Why Obama is Winning

This man never ceases to amaze me.

In response to the elitism charges.

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3 o’clock, 4 o’clock

It’s amazing how the 3am ad, of all of Hillary’s ads, has reached cult status and become the most iconic ad of the primary campaign. And how that hasn’t really been a good thing for Hillary. Let’s take a look at two spoofs of her 3am ads.

This from the Jed Report.

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Those unpaid Hillary bills have, unfortunately, not become a large issue in this campaign, much to my chagrin. For someone who is running on competence and ability to lead, how can this be a positive testament to how she will run Government?

The second one comes from Saturday Night Life, and was far more controversial. I happen to think that it attacks Hillary more than Barack, but many on the blogosphere disagreed. Take a look.

Once again. I wonder how much we’ll see this in the fall.

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3 o'clock, 4 o'clock

It’s amazing how the 3am ad, of all of Hillary’s ads, has reached cult status and become the most iconic ad of the primary campaign. And how that hasn’t really been a good thing for Hillary. Let’s take a look at two spoofs of her 3am ads.

This from the Jed Report.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Those unpaid Hillary bills have, unfortunately, not become a large issue in this campaign, much to my chagrin. For someone who is running on competence and ability to lead, how can this be a positive testament to how she will run Government?

The second one comes from Saturday Night Life, and was far more controversial. I happen to think that it attacks Hillary more than Barack, but many on the blogosphere disagreed. Take a look.

Once again. I wonder how much we’ll see this in the fall.

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