"History's verdict is all we have left. And when tomorrow calls today to account, some of us want to be able to say we stood up. We called out. We were not silent. "

When I first read these words in an op-ed by Leonard Pitts, Jr. in the Baltimore Sun back in 2006, I was so deeply affected by them that I put them at the top of my blog, Deanie's Blue Inkblots: http://deaniemills.com

I had just begun to speak out against the war in Iraq, something I had held off doing because my son was active-duty Marine Corps at the time, and I didn't want anything I said online to wind up in the e-mail Inbox of some sergeant or other and get him into trouble.

But when he gave me this computer during a post-deployment leave after serving in Iraq, he said with a shrug, "I don't care what they do to me."

In fact, he later bought me a T-shirt while on a visit to Tombstone, Arizona, with the following words from the iconic movie printed on it:

"You brought down the thunder.  Now you got it.  Tell 'em I'm comin', and hell's comin' with me."

Dustin said, "Bush brought down the thunder when he started this war.  Now you go after him.  And don't be nice.  This is war."

So, with his and my husband's and daughter's blessing, I started speaking out everywhere I could find listeners, pouring every ounce of energy I had into doing my part to stop that war and, eventually, to put Sen. Barack Obama in the White House so that HE could stop the war.

My blog was just cranking up when I read Mr. Pitt's op-ed.  At the time, he was referring to the president's warrantless wiretapping program, but the piece was an indictment on so much more:

So it has come to this. The president's apologists rationalize even his most obvious and egregious illegalities, mendacities and bungling with straight faces and earnest demeanor and the rest of us are left posturing for history, trying to make certain that when the official record is written, we are not indicted by our silence.

Your humble correspondent, by the by, doesn't mean to cast aspersions when he talks about folks posturing for history. He's been doing the same thing.

People - conservatives, the occasional liberal - sometimes ask me why I bother. Another column on the sins of George W. Bush? What's the point? What will change? The people who disagree with him already know. And there's not enough evidence in the world to convince his believers - the word is appropriate - that he does not, in fact, walk on water.

Still...You cannot be a student of history without ruminating on some of the more dubious episodes of the American past and wondering how in the world such things were allowed to happen.

Was the whole country napping when Joseph R. McCarthy's bullying, innuendoes and lies cast a pall on this nation and made a mockery of the Constitution? Didn't anybody speak out when Franklin Roosevelt sent Americans to concentration camps? Where were the good people when Americans of African descent were being lynched in horrific numbers and the president and the Congress stood by and did nothing?

You read about these failures of will, of courage, of spirit and you keep asking ... how? How could that which is so obviously wrong now have been so quietly accepted then?

From that question, it is only a short hop to another, more pressing one: What will tomorrow say about today?


When I decided to speak out, my voice joined a growing chorus of voices raised in protest over not just the war, but the travesty that was the George W. Bush administration, and the desperate need to do what we could to stand in the way of his imperial presidency as it attempted to dismantle our governmental protections, wage war without our consent, strip us of our civil liberties, and subvert the Constitution.

Talking Points Memo, HuffingtonPost.com, the Daily Kos, and other websites were powerful public squares for the voices to be raised.

Although so many who did not take the Internet seriously scoffed at bloggers, I took what we do seriously.  I thought it no different from what Thomas Paine and so many like him did in the days leading up to the Revolution, when they met clandestinely around printing presses, and churned out pamphlets and tracts protesting British rule, that were hand-distributed to friend and foe alike.

There is a reason that the very first ammendment to the Constitution is one guaranteeing us the freedom to speak out.

When Barack Obama recognized this growing power, and harnessed it to energize, empower, and fund his campaign, he was stepping up to a moment in the destiny of this country's history, a moment when The People took back their government and their rights, and in so doing, brought an unjust war to an end and began the slow painful rollback of so many Bush disasters.

This new incoming administration also recognizes the impact that the Internet can have on transparency and accountability in government (more about that later, when I have time to provide links), and has indicated a willingness to provide that kind of access.  Working across the aisle as senator, Obama has already passed one law that provides Internet access to government funding--where it goes, who gets it, and how much.  (Again, links later.)

The blogging community made up their minds, both individually and collectively, that when history's verdict came in, when tomorrow called today into account, we would be the ones who would be able to say:

WE STOOD UP.  WE CALLED OUT.  WE WERE NOT SILENT.

At this time, four years ago, I couldn't breathe.

Even though I swim twice a week at the local community college, do Yoga three or four times a week, and go hiking with my dogs in the country, still, I could not breathe.

At that time, my son was fighting--block by block, street by street, house by house, room by room--with the Marine Corps in Fallujah, in what was to be one of the bloodiest, most hard fought battles in Marine Corps history.  More combat awards, from Purple Hearts to Navy Crosses, were given to my son's unit, the Third Battalion, Fifth Marine, than were given in the entire military service--including Army--put together.  To this day, more soldiers and Marines died in that month than in any other month of this miserable Iraq war.

Their commander in chief, George W. Bush, had deliberately delayed the battle until after the election, fearing that so many dead soldiers and Marines on people's TV news every night would have cost him votes.

To this Marine mom, his re-election meant that my family would remain in hell for years to come.  Until June of 2008--just this past summer--the Mills family had a precious son or nephew in combat deployments to the worst areas of Iraq for every single year since the war began in 2003, for a total of six Marine and army deployments, every one of them Infantry, every one of them horrific.

And so this time four years ago, I could not breathe.

I've always been wary of doctors and only go once a year, for my annual ob/gyn check-up and mammogram, but my doctor, a woman, mom, and friend--was worried enough to send me to a cardiologist.  He ran every stress-type, dye-in-the-blood, you-name-it test he could think of, but all the results were normal--exceptionally so for a woman in her 50's, he said.  Even I could see enough seriously sick people in his waiting room to know I didn't belong there.

I decided that broken hearts don't always show up on the X-Rays.

My son came home in one piece and of relatively sound mind, only to be shipped back in 2006, a time that was so dangerous in the Anbar that every single time his platoon went out on patrol, someone got "blown up," which means, fell prey to a roadside bomb, including my son.  He came home, but it was tougher this time.  He'd watched friends die and could have been killed himself.  He'd been injured, though not as seriously as some.  He had a lot to work through in his head.

But still, I could not breathe.

In fact, I could barely function, and it wasn't just me.  The other combat moms and dads and other family members I knew suffered similar symptoms of their own peculiar brand of post traumatic stress.  When a human being endures months on end of the worst kind of terror you can imagine--knowing, all along, that as long as Bush is in the White House your child or spouse or sibling will get sent back and back and back again and again and again--it does something to the wiring in your brain.

My sister-in-law, who sent my nephew Michael into combat with the Marines three times, tells me that to this day, even though he's been out of the service for two years, she still can't sleep nights.  We talked about the feelings of agitation, unrest and unease, restlessness, bouts of depression, and nightmares we all still suffer, even though our loved ones are safe now.

It's not just the troops who fight wars, you see.

By the time Dustin came home for his post-deployment leave in 2006, I was profoundly depressed.  I cannot recall another time in my life where I had felt so helpless, so powerless, so hopeless. 

I had opposed this war from the beginning, only to send one precious son or nephew after another into the meat-grinding maw of it, and I could see no end in sight.  Every day the axis of evil--Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld--would talk empty words like "victory" and spread happy-news propaganda that I knew was bullshit.  Not only did I know from a wide range of reading in publications worldwide (including the Army Times and Marine Times), but I knew from talking to my family members who'd been there.

Dustin came home that year a couple weeks before Mother's Day.  His gift to me was a brand-new computer, which he paid for with some of his combat pay. 

"You have a talent," he said.  "Use it to fight back."  He added, "Don't be nice.  This is war."

Next to my computer are two framed photographs: one, of my son in full combat gear, to remind me of the price he had to pay to buy this computer for me; and two, my daughter, wearing a peace sign around her neck and with a photograph of her brother pinned to her shirt, protesting the war at the Republican convention in New York City, 2004, to remind me how to best use the computer, and why.

For months I spoke out against the war, marshalling facts and figures and passion and fire and marching them tirelessly across the spectrum of the Internet, but eventually I could see that the Democrats in congress did not have the power to end this war--not if their one-vote majority in the Senate was the likes of Joe Lieberman.  Not if they could not overcome a Bush veto.

Again, I was laid out by that old feeling of powerlessness, that nothing I or anyone else could ever do would change anything about the war in Iraq.  Bush sent MORE troops--including yet another nephew, Troy--for the so-called "surge" that was deliberately designed for one reason and one reason only: to win the media war, to tamp down violence enough to take the war off the evening news and set up Bush's Chosen One--John McCain--to come sweeping in as the next commander-in-chief of that endless war.

My nephew's army unit was shipped over early as part of the surge, before they'd even had desert training.  Two weeks after arriving in-country, their deployment was extended by three months.  Their Stryker brigade was sent to the Diyala province, which, in 2007, was one of the bloodiest parts of the country. 

More endless months of not being able to breathe.

I had been following Barack Obama's career path ever since the convention of 2004, and I'd read both his books.  It seemed to me, when he declared for the presidency, that he was going to take what he'd learned as a community organizer and apply it nation-wide.  It was bold and untried and pretty much mocked by the party establishment. 

Obama wanted to end the war; not "precipitously"--as the media and opponents endlessly accused--but responsibly and reasonably, allowing for conditions "on the ground" but not being dictated by them.  This is something a military family can understand, appreciate, and support.

I realized that the only way we would ever see any hope of ending the war in Iraq was to put Barack Obama in the White House.

For the most part, I swung away from writing about the war, and from that point on, poured all my energies, talents, skills, and what money I could afford, into the campaign to elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.  I was, in fact, one of the first few thousand to sign up on his new webpage.

At the time, he was 30 points behind Hillary, and nobody but his straggling gaggle of supporters took him seriously.

For two years, this Marine mom--with full support and encouragement from her Marine son (also an Obama supporter)--fought in a war of her own, battling through a hard-fought, nerve-wracking primary season and on into a truly vicious campaign.  I was part of another type of army--volunteers and supporters, giving what they had to give, to a cause greater than themselves.

For 10, 12 hours a day, I worked at my computer, photos of my son and daughter at hand.  My job, as I saw it, was to persuade, to influence, to cajole, to encourage--even to badger, at times--anyone out there who might read my words, to vote for Obama.

I knew that as a Marine combat mom, my words held a certain weight, because the Republicans had used patriotism as a bludgeon to beat into submission anyone who dared think a thought contrary to the party line, and their favorite thing to do was to use "the troops" as photo-op props, which sent the subliminal message that "the troops" were all Bush-supporters too and that a vote against his agenda was a vote against them, that to protest Bush's War was to protest soldiers and Marines.

Whenever I got the chance, I worked to dismantle that myth, and over time, I heard from hundreds of active-duty military, veterans, and military families who thanked me for speaking out when they felt (those on active duty) that they could not.  Or when they just didn't have the words.

I was their voice.

Living in a red-state Republican county (which ultimately voted 75% for John McCain), I drove around with a huge sign in my rear window that read:

BLUE STAR FAMILIES FOR OBAMA: PRO-MILITARY, PRO-OBAMA.

Whenever I could, I worked to expose the difference between John McCain's patriotic rhetoric and war-hero narrative...and his voting record, which was dismal.  He voted against measure after measure after measure that was designed to support either veterans or troops in the field.  He actively fought against the new G.I. Bill.

I also wanted people to know that Michelle Obama had adopted military families and the stress and strain fighting two wars has put on them, as one of her signature issues, and she has worked tirelessly to get that word out, and to visit as many military bases as she can, listening to their concerns, and taking them home to her husband.

My posts got picked up and started to appear all over  the Internet, in some unusual places--a Denver newspaper, a Montana Democratic website, a Michigan paper.  Some of my HuffingtonPost.com and Talking Points Memo pieces got Buzzed and Twittered and Yahooed.  Readers sent links to friends all over the world.

In July, Barack Obama visited Baghdad and met with Gen. Petraeus.  From what I've read of what took place, Petraeus rolled out the full-court press to bring Obama over to the Bush/Cheney/Petraeus point of view--that Iraq was the central front of the war on terror and that we needed to be there pretty much indefintely.  There were helicopter tours, lengthy and detailed power-point demonstrations, high-ranking meetings with brass.

Reports are that Obama was deeply respectful of Petraeus--but he stood firm.  He reiterated that, were he to be elected president, he would have to be concerned with not just Iraq, but with the entire Middle East, Afghanistan, and other hot points in the globe. 

He would not forsake those responsibilities for Iraq.  That, in fact, as commander-in-chief, one of the first things he would do is sit down with those very generals and start planning an end to the war.

This meeting, and its aftermath, flew completely under the media radar, but this Marine mom stood up and cheered when she read it.  Obama sent a clear signal that he was not going to hero-worship Petraeus and was not going to be intimidated or deterred from what he thought was the best thing to do for our country. 

This was huge.  Since most members of the press never served in the military, they didn't think it significant to report, but I can guarantee you it sent a shockwave through the military community--mostly one of relief.

Not all ranking or enlisted military even wanted to wage this war in Iraq in the first place, and many of them have been appalled at how it has been mismanaged.  The strains of repeat deployments have torn apart families, driven up suicide rates as well as rates of PTSD and other signs of great stress, as well as driven down recruitment. 

They're exhausted.  Nobody wants to rocket-launch the troops out of Iraq and abandon the people who have come to depend upon them for their safety, but they're more than ready to serve notice to the Iraqi government that it's time for them to step up and take care of themselves.

It is my understanding that, since then, Obama has had several substantive conversations with Petraeus, who has since left to take over the Central Command and ordered up a complete evaluation of the situation in Afghanistan.  Petraeus's recent announcement that an army brigade would be sent home from Iraq three months early and not replaced is a clear signal that he understands that he will have a new boss with new priorities.

For me, getting Barack Obama elected president was not just a matter of partisanship or politics.

It was life or death.

My fight to put Obama in the Oval Office was, in effect, a fight to protect my family.

I realize that my voice was only one of millions; a single thread woven into the fabric of a brilliant tapestry.  You wouldn't be able to pick my thread out from all the others, but when you stand back and take a good long look...oh, what a beautiful thing it is that we have wrought.

This has never been about just one man.  It has never been about worshipping some sort of messianic figure whom we all believe will save the world.

This has, from the beginning, been a MOVEMENT, a surge, if you will, of millions who poured out into the streets and over the airwaves and telephone lines and Internet connections and rallies...millions of voices, raised in one sustained SHOUT to bring down the walls of Jericho.

There may not have been any blood shed in this battle, but it was a fight, every step of the way.  And somewhere along the line, this Marine mom no longer felt helpless and hopeless and powerless.

I felt empowered.

I had stepped up.  I had done my part.  I had lifted my voice.  I had fought the good fight.

On the moment that Obama was declared the new president-elect on TV, my husband called me, and I broke down crying.  My daughter called, and my son called, and my sister called, and friends called.

And still I wept.

For days, I wept.

I could not write.

There were no words.

And then, one soft sunset on the eve of Veteran's Day, I took the dogs for a walk down our country road.  The sun had gone down in a blaze of West Texas glory, and the sky was violet and rose-red. 

On the distant horizon, the giant wind turbines stood silent sentinal--each one, to my mind, a monument to the fallen.  I would so much rather tall turbines stretched across the plains as far as the eye can see...than more white headstones spread out across Arlington National Cemetery.

Every wind turbine is, to me, one less soldier or Marine who has to die for oil.

I stood for a moment, watching the tiny red lights blink on the distant turbines, and closer, along a fenceline that stitched together a couple of pastures, the sillouettes of three deer moved with calm, quiet grace against the purple sky.

There was a breathless hush in the normally restless West Texas wind, the time the cowboys like to say the wind "lies down" for the day.

In that moment, I took a deep, long breath...and I was free, at last.

For me, the war was over.

And I could breathe again.

Guys, here is an excerpt from my latest HuffingtonPost.com Off the Bus submission.  I'm too busy just yet to figure out how to "extend" a post.  I tried it once and the whole thing disappeared.  So until after the election, anyway, for this particular post, I'm going to post here the first few paragraphs and then provide the link to Off the Bus.

You can come back and comment here, or leave a comment there, or as always, you are more than welcome to visit the post or any of my others from way back over at my home site:  http://deaniemills.com

 

 

Boy, I wish Molly Ivins had lived to see this.

Back in 2000, with co-author Lou Dubose, Ivins wrote a book called, Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush. The premise of the book was stated in its introduction:

"Youthful political reporters are always told there are three ways to judge a politician. The first is to look at the record. The second is to look at the record. And third, look at the record."

Of course, nobody wanted to look at the record, since Dubya was just such a fun guy to have a beer with.

A few years later, she and Dubose wrote, Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, in which she decried his "crony capitalism" and the resulting disaster of his presidency.

But again, America and especially Texas, ignored Molly, to their own peril, and put Shrub right back in the White House because hey, he just hadn't done enough damage the first four years to suit us.

You can't just blame the right-wingers who flooded to take over the state in the wake of Bush's gubernatorial hurricane. At the same time, Texan Democrats refused to leave their creaky old party houses in spite of numerous storm warnings, and seemed surprised when they lost not just the governorship, but the state House and Senate too, while the Wicked Wizard of the West, Tom DeLay, worked his dark magic to jerrymander the entire state to Republican hell.

After that, Democrats everywhere seemed to give up on Texas. It's so reliably red on all the polling maps that I'm surprised they even bother including it anymore.

Back in 2004, I tried in vain to find a state headquarters office for the John Kerry campaign. When that didn't work, I drove a hundred miles to attend a John Kerry meet-up.

Six people showed up.

Next, I drove a hundred miles in the opposite direction to find a local Democratic party field office. There was one in that city. I know because I called 'em on the phone. Then I drove up and down, up and down the street where it was supposed to be located, finally driving back home in disgust when I couldn't get an answer to my increasingly frustrated phone calls for help.

Later, I learned that the Democratic field office had been located in a spare room at the rear of a local government office. I guess you had to know a secret password to get in because there wasn't even so much as a blue bumper sticker in the window informing you that this was the Democratic Party field office for that city.

It's like they were embarrassed to be there or something.

So yeah, Bush took the state with something like a thousand points.

But it's different now, and if Molly could see what's going on in Texas these days, she'd let out a hoo-rah and a big laugh.

Texas politics are on the move, and for the first time in years, it's exciting to be a Democrat in this very red state. I'd like to tip my hat (as you can see in the photo, I actually have one), not just to Molly's memory, but to Sen. Barack Obama for making it happen.

 

(You can read the rest here at HuffPo:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deanie-mills/if-molly-ivins-could-only_b_139056.html or here at http://deaniemills.com  and I promise I'll figure out how to manage this new TPM software and get things right after the election!)

 

(This is just up at HuffingtonPost.com, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deanie-mills/changing-colors-in-the-lo_b_136190.html, under the title, "Changing Colors in the Lone Star State," and cross-posted at my blog, "Blue Inkblots," at http://deaniemills.com ) 


On just about any political polling map you can name, the state of Texas is always reliably Red.  A former Texas governor is now the president (such as he is); we've got a Republican governor, both our U.S. senators are Republican, and Tom DeLay's famous and evil redistricting scheme,   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101927_pf.html

which caused all the state Democratic congressmen to literally leave the state and hide out in New Mexico to avoid voting for it--gave the U.S. Congress five more Republicans in the following election. 

But those maps don't tell the whole story.  The truth is that Texas is turning more purple every day.

Weekend endorsements from the Dallas Morning News,

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-nutwospots_19edi.State.Edition1.2908f55.html

which backed John McCain, and the Houston Chronicle
 
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/recommendations/6065490.html

and Austin American Statesman,

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/10/19/1019president_edit.html

which endorsed Barack Obama, are perfect examples of the split personality of the state of Texas at this time, and the changing nature of that personality.

And a dead-on example of that is Dallas county.  Once a bastion of conservatism, it would appear on the surface to still be one, since, after all, the Morning News endorsed McCain, revealing their bias in this telling statement:


"Americans approach this election in understandable fear and anger, especially at the incumbent Republican president who, however unjustly, bears the brunt of the blame for the crisis. "  (emphasis mine)


This is the kind of little editorial caveat, buried in the middle of a sentence, that reveals a great deal.  Somehow, the man who has been president for the past eight years is NOT TO BLAME for the wreckage he has made not only of his own presidency, but of the nation.

The editorial goes on to point out all the times McCain bucked his own party--not mentioning, of course, that he has reversed himself on all those things, and to dwell for an entire paragraph on the deficit, which bothers the paper, apparently, more than any other problem facing the country.  (Ranking economists on both sides of the political aisle agree that the deficit is actually the LEAST of our problems right now.)

But what the editorial says is meaningless in the face of the REALITY of what is going on in Dallas country right now.

In 2006, EVERY SINGLE DALLAS COUNTY ELECTION SPOT WAS WON BY DEMOCRATS, from judges to dogcatcher.

In fact, as former Democratic gubanatorial candidate Chris Bell wrote on the website, The Texas Blue  http://www.thetexasblue.com

there is growing excitement among Texas Democrats statewide:

http://www.thetexasblue.com/democratic-outlook


"People in Texas woke up after the 2006 election and realized a new day had dawned. Gone was the skepticism and despair which had driven us to our lowest point. People all across the state were ready to fight another day.

"Nowhere has the awakening been any greater than here at home in Harris County. Shortly after the 2006 election, after seeing the successful effort in Dallas County, a committee was formed to try to recruit judicial candidates since that had been so difficult in the past. There was no need for a recruitment committee. People were lining up to run for judge in Harris County and now there will be contested Democratic Primary races for a large number of benches. We also have great candidates for every other county office.

"The Harris County Democratic Party's Johnson Rayburn Dinner had attracted 300 or so people in 2006. In 2007, over 800 people purchased tickets and the ballroom was packed to the gills. "


Bell goes on to describe numerous Democratic events he has attended statewide, with hundreds more in attendance than expected, and mentions that even the media "no longer treats the Republican party as invincible."

Harris county is, of course home to Houston, and this new blue flame is licking at a city's heels that once seemed the impregnable fortress of Bush Oilfield Republican Rule, and is still the home of George Bush 41. 

According to Texas Blue,  http://www.thetexasblue.com/races-could-surprise-you-tx-u-s-district-10 the 10th District, which encompasses a large area from the southwest suburbs of Austin to the northwest suburbs of Houston, has also benefitted from an influx of Democratic voters, putting its congressional seat into play.

The thing is, for the stalwart Houston Chronicle to endorse Barack Obama is big.  Huge.  Massive.  Ginormous.  (Okay, I'll stop now.):


"The incoming administration must immediately focus and engage on so many fronts. The tasks at hand will require stamina, creativity and leadership abilities to replace partisan gridlock with a national consensus on what is best for the American people. The new leadership team must have the intellect and temperament to tackle complex issues with equally sophisticated solutions. The current go-it-alone mentality in the White House on foreign policy must give way to an effort to work in concert with our allies while engaging our enemies at the negotiating table as well as on the battlefield.

"After carefully observing the Democratic and Republican nominees in drawn-out primary struggles as well as in the general campaign, including three debates, the Chronicle strongly believes that the ticket of Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden offers the best choice to lead the United States on a new course into the second decade of the 21st century.

"Obama appears to possess the tools to confront our myriad and daunting problems. He's thoughtful and analytical. He has met his opponents' attacks with calm and reasoned responses. Viewers of the debates saw a poised, well-prepared plausible president with well-articulated positions on the bread-and-butter issues that poll after poll indicate are the true concerns of voters. While Arizona Sen. John McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have struck an increasingly personal and negative tone in their speeches, Obama has continued to talk about issues of substance."


They go on to say that while they hope Obama might be more amenable to the oil industry than he's been so far, they applaud his support of NASA.  Like most of 104 other nationwide newspapers who have endorsed Obama,
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/why-obamas-shocking-lands_b_136010.html

the Chronicle deplores McCain's campaign tactics and his choice of Sarah Palin as VP.

For the Austin American Statesman to endorse Obama is not quite so cataclysmic, since the state capitol and home to the University of Texas is known as a liberal town.  However, the capitol itself has been pretty reliably Red in recent years, which makes the American Statesman's comments that much more satisfying:


"In the third and final debate last week, John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona, tried to bait him into the gutter, but Obama refused to get down there. Political wisdom dictates that candidates who are attacked return double the fire directed at them. Obama responded calmly, defending himself but declining to respond in kind.

"Now that's change."
 

They go on to play the "now that's change" meme all through the piece.  I hope Tom DeLay's boys choked on it over their Cheerios Sunday morning, before leaving for church, where they could pretend to be righteous.

But it's not just the big cities of Texas that are turning purple. 

A look at the congressional map put up by the Lone Star Project,

http://www.lonestarproject.net/Map/House%20Protect/TXVictoryMap.html 

shows a bright swath of blue right through the heart of West Texas--what I like to call the buckle of the Bush Bible Belt.  The blue sections encompass areas in the vicinity of Midland--the town where Bush likes to pretend he grew up--the ultra-conservative Abilene, and the Panhandle town of Plainview, as well as deep East Piney Woods counties, (that puts the lie to the idea of total Redneck dominance).

As the accompanying article points out, http://www.lonestarproject.net/Map/TXVictory.html 

this has come about IN SPITE OF DeLay's redistricting sheme.  And we all know by now, much to my happy relish, DeLay himself lost his own seat in 2006 to a Democrat, Nick Lampson.

As Chris Bell pointed out in his piece, the purpling--even possible blueing--of the Lone Star State is not going to happen all at once, even with a Democratic lead candidate as charismatic and competent as the one we've got.  It's happening, in fact, so gradually that the Republicans don't even seem to have noticed.  This is still a state where neither top candidate ever visits during the final weeks of their campaigns, because they assume the state is too reliably Red for either one to worry about.

But this year, Obama is running ads in Texas around the clock.  I see them all the time, and we get our local news feed from Abilene.  His Texas organization is well-trained, well-funded, and well-organized.  They're fighting for every single vote.

Over time, those votes are going to add up.  Check in with me again in four years.  By that time I think Texas is going to be purple.

By the end of President Obama's second term, it might even be blue.

Whew.  Thank goodness I'm from a small town!  According to Sarah Palin, if you're from a small town, why, you're PRO-AMERICA:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/17/palin-clarifies-what-part_n_135641.html

As reported in the Washington Post and in more detail in HuffingtonPost, she said:


"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe" -- here the audience interrupted Palin with applause and cheers -- "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans."


Wow.  I'm not only pro-America, I'm REAL America!

We live about 20 miles outside a town of no more than 12,000 souls, which qualifies, I think, as a small town.  In fact, we have to drive a hundred miles just to get to a freakin' mall, so man, we are REALLY small.  Not one of those nasty suburbs that you see in some places like, say, Washington, D.C.

That makes me feel just so superior, being real and all.  It reminds me of that commercial that has this little quaifier at the bottom that says, REAL PEOPLE.  NOT ACTORS.  I had more fun calling up my daughter, an actor who's plied her trade in New York and London and now lives and acts in L.A., and saying, Hey!  You're NOT REAL!

So I say to all you poor slobs livin' out there in those nasty big cities that It's just too bad you're not only not real, but not pro-America.  Also, you're not kind or good and you don't have any courage.

Of course, this presents a dilemma to me, on account of how my son, who did two tours in Iraq with the Marine Corps, now lives in HOUSTON.

Eew.  Talk about your basic big city.  I guess that means he doesn't really love America as much as all us small-town wonderful people do.

BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!

Sarah has covered the bases:


"Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom."


Well, thank God for that!  He doesn't work in a factory and he's not a farmer or a teacher but he protected our virtue in uniform.  So he's covered.

But his girlfriend is not, because she's just a city girl, period.  Neither is my daughter, of course, living in Sodom and Gomorrah like she does.

In fact, I daresay the vast majority of the population of the United States of America is not the "real America," according to Sarah Palin.

Just those who live in small towns in, apparently, very red states, since they won't let her go anyplace else, and now we learn, her staff won't let her watch the news either, because they don't want her to get "depressed."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/17/palins-staffers-keep-her_n_135551.html


I guess if they let her watch the TV news, she'd figure out that small towns make up an ever-growing, shrinking minority of the population of this country.  Drive through any of hundreds of them and you'll see stores boarded up and schools closed, unless they're located either close to a major metropolitan area, have an Interstate running through them, or are located in an area where the local industry is booming.

And small towns are aging.  Almost always, school enrollment is dropping in small towns.  In our own little village--whose population now is probably closer to 10,000--all five elementary schools were closed and combined into a single, new school that was built for those who remained.  And there is still just one high school, but it's UIL ranking has dropped from 4-A to 3-A.

It has long been my opinion that the base of the Republican party is aging; that the demographic of most of the screaming-radio programs and the Bill O'Reilly type shows are also aging.  I know they are losing new voters in this year's registration drive.  Young people are flocking to the Democratic party and its charismatic candidate.

Look around at the crowd shots at a Palin or a McCain rally.  See how many are white and over 50.

Then talk to some parents of grown children who live in those small towns and ask where their kids are.  Chances are, they've had to move away to find work, which contributes even more to the lower birth rate.

So I guess that means that, in order to be a real American to Sarah Palin, you pretty much need to be white, over 50, and come from a small town.

Oh man!  That's me!  The trifecta of Americanness!  Woo-hoo!

Too damn bad I'm voting for Obama, eh?

Guys, this is my latest post-debate blogpost for HuffingtonPost.com's Off the Bus page.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deanie-mills/the-religious-right-wing_b_135293.html

It's an analysis of why McCain's campaign seems so out of touch, and how an increasingly isolated group of religious right-wingers are failing to see how the rest of the country is leaving them behind, and how they are splitting the Republican party.  It's long, but worth it, I think.

Cross-posted, as always, at http://deaniemills.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In a scene near the end of the fascinating HBO mini-series, John Adams, the elderly statesman has been called upon to comment on a painting depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Some 50 years has passed since that famous event in the nation's history, and the painter has presented a fanciful portrait of all the men gathered together dramatically to put their names on the document.

This upsets old Adams, who upbraids the artist for his imaginary work.  "There was a revolution going on," he points out drily, "and most of us were out fighting it."  He explained that it took months to gather all the signatures, since each of the men had to attend to it whenever he could get a chance to do so.

In the fifty years since the fledgling country broke free of its yoke to mother England, Adams has seen many changes, and he frets that the original ideals that set forth the concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have been lost in the hurly-burly world of politics and the more mundane business of governance.

But a friend tells him how irreplaceable and valuable had been the contributions of John Adams and his friend and competitor, Thomas Jefferson.  He says:

"Many of us FOUGHT in the revolution...but you and Jefferson...you THOUGHT it for the rest of us."

This one quote, out of hours of fine writing and production values and acting that brought forth the program, had a profound effect on me.

There are several different ways to look at it that are relevant to our current presidential race, and one of them is the emphasis that some candidates put on FIGHTING.

Yesterday, John McCain said, "What America needs in this hour is a fighter, someone who puts all his cards on the table and trusts the judgment of the American people."  Pointing out that, "I have fought for this country since I was 17 years old," (a dubious claim, since I'm assuming he's referring to the beginning of his career at Annapolis, which is significant mainly for tales of his carousing, swearing, drinking, philandering, gaining demerits, and pissing off superiors--which hardly qualifies as fighting for one's country), and goes on to say, "I'm an American.  And I choose to fight."

This sounds very rah-rah, and should, on the surface of it, fire up the voters who, the conventional wisdom goes, like nothing better than someone who will fight.

Hillary Clinton thought so, too.  As her campaign wore on and she began to lose to the upstart, Obama, she started framing her narrative more and more as someone who, "will fight for you from Day One."

She spoke often about how hard a worker she was, how much of a fighter she was, and how hard she was going to both work and fight for the downtrodden if and when she made it to the White House.

But a strange thing happened on the way.

Turns out, the voters weren't so much interested in a fighter.

Why is that?

Well, consider it in the context of what the friend of John Adams meant when he said, "We fought in the revolution...but you thought it."

In that same scene, he went on to explain that, even though Adams and Jefferson disagreed on various approaches to founding a new democracy, "You were like opposite book-ends," said Adams's friend.

In other words, though their ideas might have been different, they were still both important to laying out the foundation that a nascent nation might need to break away from a suffocating mother country and become its own force on the world stage.

And while great warriors--think George Washington, of course--were needed to do the serious military battling necessary to overthrow an occupying army, at the same time, great THINKERS were also needed to tackle not just the IDEA of freedom, but the NUTS and BOLTS of how to accomplish and sustain a free government, based on laws and universal rights and responsibilities of the community.

What Adams's friend was saying was that it was relatively EASY to do the fighting.  Most anyone could pick up a musket and pouch of powder, join the militia, and go off to shoot Redcoats.  The great numbers of Revolutionaries could take care of the frightening business of overthrowing an army.

But there were only a HANDFUL of great thinking men, men of genius and grace, visionaries who could see unfurled before them the banner of democracy at a time when most of the rabble was just pissed off that they had to pay taxes to a foreign government that didn't seem to care about them.

These men were intellectual giants, men who could not just write beautiful words or deliver eloquent speeches, but who could set forth precepts that would hold fast against grave challenges for more than 200 years.

The Revolution, such as it was, would have fallen flat without those men, who may never have personally fired a shot.

(As the war in Iraq has proven, a military can overthrow another army with relative ease--it's knowing what to do NEXT, and accomplishing that vision, that is the REAL test.)

Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and others--they established this government and this country.  They THOUGHT the revolution.

We have had a series of leaders in this new century who are great fighters, (or think they are, anyway).  They strut and they swagger across the world stage, throw their army at global problems, and narrow their worldview down to the simple, and simplistic, "You're either for us or against us."

That worldview extends, not just overseas, but here at home as well, in battles with congress and campaign battles.  And even, WITHIN campaigns.

While Hillary Clinton was bragging about how hard she would fight for us all, her own campaign was riddled with infighting, backbiting, blaming, and leaking all to the press.

The same thing is playing out now, in the "fighter" McCain's campaign.  There are reports that his own running mate is aligning herself against him in several issues and outright ignoring him in others as she positions herself for a possible run in 2012.  On at least three separate occasions, McCain has fired or otherwise completely overhauled the top leadership of his campaign, and during each phase, there was, as in the Clinton campaign--infighting, backbiting, blaming, and press-leaking.

Having a fighter in the Oval Office is not always a good thing, because fighters tend to fight.  With everyone.  With anyone.  With opponents and with friends.  With themselves, even.

But what we are facing as a nation is far bigger than that.

Right now, there are several deep, almost invisible undercurrents running in the American psyche, provoked and brought forth to the surface by recent events.

One is a cynicism and an over-riding despair.  Every day brings more scary news, and it's not just on television.  Hearing about lay-offs on the news is one thing; it's quite another when it hits your own family or someone you love.  Or when someone you know loses their home, it is absolutely devastating.  Just about everyone has had to make some kind of sacrifice.

This leads to a generalized anxiety that lays like a pall over the population.  We see signs of emotional devastation--beloved pets abandoned at animal shelters when their owners are homeless, children turned into foster care so they won't have to live in the streets, suicide hotlines jammed with calls, and domestic abuse sky-rocketing.  Crime rates are going up, particularly robbery and burglary.  Pawn shops are seeing more business--one pawn shop owner spoke of someone he would not name, who had brought in an NFL Superbowl ring to pawn.

At a time like this, it is instinctive to think that we as a nation would want someone to fight for us, right?

But consider two candidates this past week.

On Sunday, John McCain's campaign said that he would not be putting forth any new economic plans or programs, "until events warrant."

Instead, on Monday, he unveiled A NEW STUMP SPEECH, in which he revealed his exciting new catch-phrase, "We've got 'em right where we want 'em!"

It was during this speech that McCain talked about how he was going to fight for us, how he understood how it feels to be afraid, and that as an American, he was a fighter.

But on that same Monday, Barack Obama unveiled a major new economic "Middle Class Rescue" program, which included half a dozen new proposals designed to encourage hiring, create jobs, prevent home foreclosures, buck up state and local government plans for rebuilding infrastructures (thus helping those states and cities as well as creating new jobs), tax breaks for emergency 401(k) and IRA withdrawals, tax relief for unemployment benefits, and so on.  He also announced measures to ensure that major lending institutions were being fair as well as accountable.

It's a very detailed plan, and you can read the entire speech here:

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/obama_speech_theres_one_word_o.php#more

At the conclusion of his remarks, Obama said:

"It's a serious challenge. But we can do it if we act now, and if we act as one nation. We can bring a new era of responsibility and accountability to Wall Street and to Washington. We can put in place common-sense regulations to prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again. We can make investments in the technology and innovation that will restore prosperity and lead to new jobs and a new economy for the 21st century. We can restore a sense of fairness and balance that will give ever American a fair shot at the American dream. And above all, we can restore confidence - confidence in America, confidence in our economy, and confidence in ourselves.

"This country and the dream it represents are being tested in a way that we haven't seen in nearly a century. And future generations will judge ours by how we respond to this test. Will they say that this was a time when America lost its way and its purpose? When we allowed our own petty differences and broken politics to plunge this country into a dark and painful recession?

"Or will they say that this was another one of those moments when America overcame? When we battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other's success?

"This is one of those moments. I realize you're cynical and fed up with politics. I understand that you're disappointed and even angry with your leaders. You have every right to be. But despite all of this, I ask of you what's been asked of the American people in times of trial and turmoil throughout our history. I ask you to believe - to believe in yourselves, in each other, and in the future we can build together.

"Together, we cannot fail."


The fundamental difference between the words of Obama and of McCain (and Hillary, for that matter), is that McCain spoke of HIMSELF, fighting battles FOR us.

He didn't really explain what those battles would be.  Just that he would fight for us.

But what Obama did was, he THOUGHT for us.

While McCain and his closest advisors were brainstorming a fiesty new slogan to go with his fighter-image, Obama and HIS closest advisors were THINKING WHAT WE COULD DO TO GET OUT OF THIS MESS.

Then, Obama took his thoughts to the American people, and he ENLISTED them in the struggle.  He said, WE can do this.  He said, WE have faced bigger challenges before, and overcome them.  He said, HERE IS WHAT WE CAN DO.

Let me put it this way.  McCain says, "I know how it feels to be afraid...I choose to fight."

Obama says, "Don't be afraid."

Do you see the difference?

A fighter fights his own battles.

A thinker understands OUR battles, and reaches out to help.  He notices that WE are afraid, and shows us what he intends to do to chase away the monsters.

On Monday, when McCain gave his speech, he was cheered by supporters, who have enjoyed the whole fighter-idea as they have shouted insults and obscenities at McCain's opponent while, at the same time, urging him to "take the gloves off" and be even meaner.

At the same time, Obama was talking to some supporter-volunteers, and a young woman mentioned that she was a nursing student, and that she'd had to borrow money for school, and didn't know what was going to happen to her.

He stopped and said, "How much money have you borrowed so far?"

She said, "Twenty-five thousand," and suddenly, a great tear tracked its way down the side of her face.

He said, "We're going to try and get you some help."

Then, he put his arms around her and said, "I appreciate all you do for me."  And he held her for a moment while she cried.

This moment was far more powerful than the moment between McCain and his rabid supporters, even though it was quiet.  It captured how most of the public feels right now, and how a potential leader is responding to that anguish.

And in so doing, he brings out the best in us, not the worst.

All of a sudden, on Monday night, McCain's campaign announced that HE had a new program for the economy, too!

Which is real leadership?  The fighter, reacting and lurching from one battle to another while he hunkers down, attacking detractors? 

Or the thinker, putting together working ideas to help real working people who can barely discuss their situations without crying?

At this point in American history, we are in a whole new revolution.  We're in a technological revolution that is rendering obsolete the industrial revolution of last century. 

We are in a revolution in warfare, from conventional battlefields and Cold War stand-offs to guerilla wars, small pockets of terrorism, and information competitions with sophisticated propagandists. 

We're in a political revolution--from Old Guard ways of Party Machines and attack ads to digital cooperation, bloggers, and online communities.

It takes a visionary to not only SEE this revolution, but to FORESEE its outcome, and to be brave enough and smart enough to position the country in the best possible place for that outcome, while at the same time, inspiring us to work together to find solutions.

When Thomas Jefferson and John Adams signed the Declaration of Independence, they and all the other signers were risking their lives, the lives of their families, and everything they owned.  They were openly setting themselves up as traitors and enemies of the Crown.  Had the colonies lost that war, all of them would have most likely been hanged.

And yet, what we needed more than anything else right then from our leaders was THOUGHT.  We needed the Jeffersons and Adams's and Franklin's to put their formidable minds together and figure out how to create a country.

We need something very similar now.  This country is emotionally lost, aimless, confused, frightened, angry--and very divided.  Back in the past century, the leaders believed that by dividing us and setting us against one another, they could get away with a grand theft of power.

But it's a new century now, and a new world that is more interconnected than ever before in history.  We long for a leader who is calm, focused, and capable, who can bring out our best selves, inspire us to be strong, and encourage us to search for common ground in the finding answers to our problems. 

We may admire the fighter, but right now, more than anything else, we need the thinker.

"I don't know who else to call," said my friend Robby.  "I don't know anybody else who would understand."

My friend Robby.  We love each other; call each other "big sister" and "little brother," and I adore his little FDR-Democrat mama and his two beautiful children.

But Robby is, in his own words, "So right-wing that I could reach around and touch your left hand."

So right-wing, in fact, that on his MySpace page, his photo is looking straight up the business end of a double-barrell shotgun with his fierce face glowering down.  Did I mention he's a card-carrying member of the NRA?

Robby and I had a few tense moments back during the Clinton Crucifixion, and because, as he says, "I love George W. Bush," we sniped back and forth a time or two during the two previous elections. 

But all that began to change during the Iraq war, when my son deployed with the Marines.

Robby had called me up that week in November of '04, just to see how I was doing.  Although we didn't know it for sure at the time, Dustin's unit had deployed specifically for the ferocious Battle of Fallujah.  Dustin had known that "something big is about to happen," and had called his dad and warned him to "keep Mama away from the T.V. news," although his dad pointed out that he'd have to lock me in a (padded) room in order to pull that feat off.

But moms know stuff, you know?  I didn't need to see the battle plans drawn up to understand that my son was in Fallujah, where the insurgency was raging, and that his life was in danger every moment of every day.  I even had a vivid dream where I was sitting in on a tactics session with Marine Corps and army officers, and one said, "We call them 'Ghost Soldiers,' because as soon as you see them, they disappear, blend in with the innocents.  You can't tell who the enemy is." 

So, when Dustin made one brief call home before the battle, I said, "Watch out for ghosts."

So Robby had called that week, and as I was saying how hard it had been to remain cheerful during a chat with my son that could have been the last we ever had, I suddenly burst into tears.  We'd known one another for 20 years by then and he had never seen me cry.

After that, Robby called every single week of Dustin's deployments--both of them.  He sent care packages, and once sent Dustin a Texas flag that he folded up tightly and carried with him everywhere he went in the bottom of his rucksack.  After the battle, Dustin and his buddies from Texas posed in front of the infamous Blackwater Bridge, which they had reclaimed from insurgents, with the Texas flag.  That photograph is one of Robby's most prized possessions.

Robby put up with a lot of rage from me during those deployments.  I had been opposed to the Iraq war before my son even enlisted, and the attitudes of the Bush administration, all the happy-talk and Rumsfeldian mindlessness, combined with daily terrified anxiety over my son and his buddies, was driving me to the brink of madness.

I daresay I crossed over that line from time to time.  I know I sure felt crazy.

But I think our talks during that time gave my friend Robby pause as to just what was going on over there, and he developed a much more reasonable mindset toward it than the people he listened to daily on conservative talk-radio.

At the same time, I appreciated the fact that, politics or no politics, he never forgot that my son was in harm's way.  You'd be surprised how many people did.  And how badly that hurt.

Because Robby's job entails a great deal of driving, he listens to conservative talk-radio all the time.

Which is what made today's phone call such a hell-froze-over moment.

"I don't know who else to talk to about this," he said, "but I just turned off the radio."

This was stunning news indeed.

"I mean for God's sake, what is WRONG with these people?" he raged.  "I keep hearing people that I would otherwise consider intelligent, thoughtful people, and they keep saying this CRAP, and I think WHAT KOOL-AID ARE YOU DRINKING?"

I told him I had the same thoughts sometimes, from people on the far left who sound as wacko in their ways as people on the far right.  It seemed like the right thing to say, rather than screaming, WHAT HAVE I BEEN TELLING YOU ALL THESE YEARS???

Robby's never going to change his political persuasion, and neither am I, but what we both hope and pray to see one day is two entire SETS of people--Republican and Democratic--who can talk to one another with the mutual respect that Robby and I have been able to show one another all these years.

After all, we've seen what 20 years or so of partisan gridlock have accomplished.

From the beginning, Robby has been very respectful of my candidate, Barack Obama.  Maybe, in part, because I was aligned against Hillary in the primaries, which made his little conservative heart glow.  Or maybe just because of the kind of man Obama is.  But Robby has told me several times that, if Obama were to be elected, "I would not be devastated.  I don't agree with most of his policies, but he seems like a reasonable, intelligent man who would at least listen to our side, and consider our concerns."

And it seems that, more and more, Robby is not alone.

Since Dustin's first deployment, I've made it a habit to read conservative columnists and op-ed writers as much as progressive ones, because I consider it a barometer on which way the thinkers in the Republican party are leaning.  At first, I was in a rage every time I read one of them, because especially where the war was concerned, it was All Kool-Aid, All the Time.

But over time, all but the most dogmatic of them began to give more serious considerations to what the thinkers on the left had long been saying where the war was concerned, but especially toward Bush's fiscal policies.

None of them, of course, liked John McCain, but they did their best to support the ticket.

The first serious cracks began to appear during the Republican convention, when John McCain suspended the first day of the convention in order to race off to the Gulf states and pretend to be presidential as Hurricane Ike threatened.

They knew that was bullshit and most of them said so.

Then came Sarah Palin.

Some of them, like David Brooks--at least in the beginning--tried to get on board the Straight-Talk Express and back Palin as fresh and energetic and a great way to revitalize a demoralized base.  They liked her convention speech, for the most part.

Then came the Charles Gibson-ABC News interview with Palin.

And they were horrified.  Some of the loudest protests I read came from conservatives. 

The thinking ones knew, right then, that this was someone chosen as an impulsive campaign gimmik, and that she was sadly underprepared for such a high office.  The Katie Couric interviews only confirmed that opinion for most of them.

Then came the economic meltdown, followed swiftly by the McCain Meltdown.  The so-called suspension of his campaign, his racing back to Washington and subsequent disastrous derailing of discussions, followed by the refusal of even the party caucus to go along with his vote...and overshadowed, completely, by the calm and measured approach of Barack Obama to the crises, convinced all but the most ridiculous Kool-Aid drinkers that Serious Times Called for Serious Measures, and that John McCain Was Not Serious.

After the first debate, other conservative thinkers weighed in that Obama had passed the test of "looking presidential."  He had held his own, even on foreign policy, and he had done it with grace, dignity, and intelligence, while McCain couldn't even force himself to look at his opponent.

I think most conservative thinkers were willing to give McCain the benefit of the doubt and to think that he'd just had a bad night, just as they gave Sarah Palin a small measure of credit because her head didn't explode during the Biden debate.  But they were not reassured, and some, like Kathleen Parker, came right out and said so.

As most of us know by now, she paid for her honesty with death threats from nutcases within her own party, provoking her to make the wry comment, "Dixie Chicks, I hear ya."

But this most recent debate, capping, as it has, a McCain campaign so vicious and mean-spirited and blatantly false--not to mention out of touch with real voter concerns--seems to have finally tipped the balance of careful conservative thought away from their own party standard-bearer.

George Will, in a piece called, "McCain in a Bear Market," for the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/08/AR2008100802926.html

wrote:

"Time was, the Baltimore Orioles' manager was Earl Weaver, a short, irascible, Napoleonic figure who, when cranky, as he frequently was, would shout at an umpire, 'Are you going to get any better or is this it?' With, mercifully, only one debate to go, that is the question about John McCain's campaign.

"In the closing days of his 10-year quest for the presidency, McCain finds it galling that Barack Obama is winning the first serious campaign he has ever run against a Republican. Before Tuesday night's uneventful event, gall was fueling what might be the McCain-Palin campaign's closing argument. It is less that Obama has bad ideas than that Obama is a bad person.

"This, McCain and his female Sancho Panza say, is demonstrated by bad associations Obama had in Chicago, such as with William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts -- telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans' accounts have recently shed. In this context, the McCain-Palin campaign's attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama's Chicago associations seems surreal -- or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, 'like being savaged by a dead sheep.'"


And it's not just George Will and Kathleen Parker who are fed up.

Also in the Post, Howard Kurtz chronicles a common conservative complaint in his op-ed, "Slipping Away?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/10/09/BL2008100901175_pf.html

He writes:


"After watching Barack Obama hit his stride at a boisterous Indiana rally Wednesday, I fired up the old laptop and came to a realization.

"There is a growing acceptance among conservatives that Obama will probably be the next president of the United States.

"You know how it goes after a big debate: Each side praises their guy and picks apart the other candidate. But if there's anyone seriously arguing that John McCain won the second debate in Nashville, I missed it.

"Some pundits say McCain did well. Others challenged some of Obama's assertions. But many on the right were candid enough to say that Obama had won the evening."


(quoting the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hays):

"'John McCain had a very strong debate. It's too bad for him that it came on a night when Barack Obama was nearly flawless.

"'The debate began with questions on the economy and for thirty minutes Obama answered those questions with the kind of substance that I suspect anxious voters wanted to hear and with exactly the right tone -- empathic, aggravated, and determined. Most important, he spoke to voters in their own language.

"'Obama's test in the first debate was to present himself as a plausible president, as a guy who didn't seem out of place on stage at a presidential debate and wouldn't seem out of place delivering a State of the Union address. Much as I'd disagree with the policies in such a speech, it was clear that he passed that test. Tuesday night, his job was to persuade voters -- particularly independents -- not only that he could be president but that he should be president. I suspect polling in the next couple of days will provide evidence that he passed that test, too.'"

(quoting David Frum): 

"'Those who press this Ayers line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for the next president, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting.'"


David Brooks has seemed to be the classic conservative paradox.  Writing for the New York Times, he has often said very flattering things about Obama, whom he considers very intelligent and thoughtful, but he has also tried very hard--especially after the vice-presidential debate, to be a Party loyalist.

But he got caught on-camera recently at a local New York event expressing how he REALLY feels:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/david-brooks-sarah-palin_n_133001.html

Brooks called Palin a "fatal cancer on the Republican party," and added that she is "absolutely not" ready to be vice-president.

Another conservative, whose name escapes me now, commented in some place I read today that, although he disagreed with most of Obama's policies, he was very impressed with the people Obama had surrounded himself with to deal with this economic crises.  He made a comment along the lines of, "In a time of crises like this, these are just the kinds of minds I want thinking about how to handle it."

Sarah Palin has tapped into a frightening core of redneck hatred, racism, and fear-mongering that has led to the crowd frenzies we've witnessed in recent weeks, and John McCain seems to delight in it as well, even though he presumably knows better.  So vicious have some of the shouted comments gotten that even the Secret Service has started to investigate.  Joe Biden has stated--rightly so--that at this level of presidential politics, those who head the ticket have a responsibility to set the tone and discourage that kind of nastiness.

So it's easy to listen to the loudest voices on their side of the aisle--aided and abetted by right-wing talk radio, FOX news, and viral e-mails--and despair.  It's easy to think that at least half of our country's population is just plain NUTS.

But my friend Robby lets me know that this is not the case.

My friend Robby TURNED OFF talk radio when even he knew it had reached the level of absolute idiocy.

This is why I keep referring to "thinking conservatives."  Because for every thinking conservative who GETS what this election is really about, there are TEN moderate Republicans and Independents out there who get it as well.

I like to joke that there will be many "closeted conservatives" who will enter the voting booth, pull the curtain, glance around to make sure they are alone, and pull the lever or push the computer-screen button for Barack Obama for president.  (And take the secret to their graves.)

These are people who do love their country, and they love their Party, and they know that, somewhere along the line (Karl Rove/George W. Bush), the values their party stands for got seriously derailed.

As Robby put it to me, "We have plenty of principles on our side that we should be able to stand on proudly.  We shouldn't HAVE to get into this bullshit about Obama being Muslim or hanging out with domestic terrorists or whatever crap it is.  Most of us know that stuff's not true.  We're better than this."

I do believe that the conservative movement, and the Republican Party overall, needs to enter into a serious phase of introspection.  Some of their most cherished beliefs have proven to be disastrously wrong.  Some have proven to be too idealistic to function in the Real World.  Some need to be adjusted, not just to reality, but to voter's longings.

In other words, the days of Donald Rumsfeld are over.  It's time for Bob Gates.  I'm talking about a flexible realism about the world and this country that sheds much of the rigid ideological thinking that caused so many of these problems, and embraces more wide-ranging solutions.

As David Frum says, they need to rebuild, rethink, regroup, and recruit--not chase around after the first serious African-American presidential candidate in history with torches and lynching ropes.

There are plenty of conservatives who understand this, and are humble enough, and concerned enough, to admit it.

I believe that a Barack Obama administration would be willing to listen to what they have to say--and the smartest among them have said that they believe he would too.

This is where we start the healing of a country torn apart by war, economic disaster, and years of partisan attacks and counter-attacks.

My friend Robby, right-wing though he is, is a decent man.  If he can turn away from the shrillest voices in his party, then I believe there are thousands more out there just like him.  Maybe millions.

Like Robby, they may disagree with Obama on policy, but like Robby and other thinking conservatives, they, like the rest of us, are ready for some common sense.

Robby said something else that stuck in my mind.  When I mentioned that McCain had embraced Karl Rove and his tactics in this election and that I thought Rove's time had passed, he said, "Karl Rove's time has passed the way Jesse Jackson's time has passed."

Clearly, it's time for a new era, a new generation of thinkers who have seen that hatred and fear just don't get the job done.  Progressive and conservative, they're looking to a candidate who has that flexibility and common sense and who has not wasted a moment of his life on hatred, and his name is Barack Obama.

I think they will vote for him, and I believe he will be our next president.

Only then will the loudest voices realize that, at long last, no one is listening.

Guys, this is just up over at HuffingtonPost.com:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deanie-mills/a-poll-pushing-political_b_132923.html

and, as always, at http://deaniemills.com

I had some fun with it; figured we could all use a laugh.  Hope you do, too.


Hello.  My name is Deanie, and I'm a poll-pushing political junkie.

"HI DEANIE."

Okay...um...I have to tell you, I'm not real sure why I'm here tonight.  I mean, my FAMILY says I'm addicted, that I have a problem, an obsession, if you will, but I prefer to call it my "passion."

And believe me, when it comes to political polls, hey, I can stop whenever I want.  I just don't really want to right now.

I don't even LIKE polls.  I don't like the taste of them.  But everywhere you go, you know, hangin' out with other political jun--er--afficianados, everybody's got their poll!  We're all having a great time!  So yeah, you want to fit in, don't you?  So you take just one little glimpse of a poll, you know, just to see how your guy is doing.

I mean, in the beginning, I didn't even really pay that much attention to polls.  Remember back in the summer of 2007, Hillary was like, 20 points ahead of Obama in every single poll, and everybody was all like, She's the nominee!  Woopee!  Back to the Bill years!  And that was depressing of course, for Obama supporters, so I just didn't imbibe.  I'd glance at one, now and then, just to fit in at the party, but I didn't, like, HAVE TO HAVE ONE or anything.  I'd just mainly find one poll and nurse it all day while I was cruising the ba--I mean, the Internet.

But then, in the primaries, when...

What?  I kind of need to hurry it up so other people can talk?  Okay, I'll fast-forward.

It was the conventions, I guess, where I first started to lose control.  Just a wee bit.  I wanted to know how people had responded to Obama's big speech, I mean, it was so IMPORTANT, and my anxiety was just so HIGH, so I roamed from site to site, trying to find out, but then that grumpy old creep McCain just HAD to steal the moment, right?  Just HAD to announce his perky little cheerleader trophy running mate on the DAY AFTER Obama's speech, which just totally squelched the momentum, and I was all like, HEY!  Are people actually FALLING for this crap???

Then the Republicans had their convention, and this airbrained bubble-head of a candidate gives her speech, and I couldn't take it any more!  I HAD TO KNOW!  Were we going to LOSE this thing because PEOPLE THOUGHT SHE WAS CUTE???

After that, I didn't care which poll I sniffed--Gallup, Rasmussin, NBC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times, CNN--hell, I didn't care--I'd even check out the FOX polls! 

ANYTHING to relieve this terrible anxiety!  Oh my GOD!

But I still had everything under control.  Really, I did.  At least, I think I did.  Okay, I know I did.  Just don't talk to my kids or my husband or my sister or...okay never mind.

Every day I had to know--HOW WERE WE DOING IN THE SWING STATES?

WHAT DID INDEPENDENTS THINK?

HOW STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO STILL BE "UNCOMMITTED"???

And then...

The debates.

The worst part of it, THE WORST, was that you knew the polls had to be taken, like, the next day, right?  And the data analyzed and stuff.  So you were really looking at THREE WHOLE DAYS to get the poll results.

I was jonesin' bad, I gotta tell you.  Waiting around for those polls was AGONY.

But THEN.

In the Biden/Palin debate?  That monumental TRAVESTY to all good actual real true debaters everywhere who were never actually IN a beauty pageant?

I've got three words for you.

C.  N.  N.

Oh baby. 

That graph at the bottom of the screen?  The one where a sampling of "uncommitted" moron--er--voters--sit and dial up their FEELINGS as to how they are reacting to stuff?

See, here's the problem I had with that.

I live in a remote geographical area and actually DON'T HAVE DISH T.V.

This means I don't GET CNN here at home.

So I raced over to their website, of course, BUT THE FEED WOULDN'T COME THROUGH!!!

And then she made that statement that sent me screaming across the room:  that Obama, in his plan to end the war in Iraq, "wants to wave the white flag of surrender."

I lost it, then.  I've sent my son and two nephews into the jaws of that Iraqi hell six different times now.  How DARE she talk about "surrender"?

I had to know: WERE PEOPLE FALLING FOR THIS?

I couldn't take it.  I was running all around the Internet, searching frantically, desperately, for someone, ANYONE who could SHOW ME THE GRAPH!!!

And then, quite by accident, I stumbled onto a CBS correspondent who actually showed the CNN graph as it had appeared at exactly that moment.

And I got to see that little line DROP DOWN TO HELL BABY!

Oh....sweet surrender...I've never known a political high quite like that.

It was like...calm...like warm water in the veins, you know?

Next few days, I was able to maintain, pretty well, especially because the polls were showing all kinds of great things for Obama, how he was ahead by an averaged total of EIGHT POINTS nationally over McCain, and how he was gaining, sometimes by ten or twelve points, in several crucial swing states.

Best of all:  Palin was plummeting.

Man, that was some good polls, there.

I confess.  I started to share them with a few close friends.  And some of them started to send me polls, too.

But then.

Last night.

Oh man.

What a PERFORMANCE.

See, my daughter is a beautiful and gifted actress, a serious one who has studied in London, worked in New York, and is now in L.A. trying to make it in the biz.  I'm so proud of her I'm obnoxious.

And I love her actor friends, because they are bright and beautiful and so funny--they are great mimics and good story-tellers.

But man, put 'em in front of an audience and yell, "CRY!"  and they'll break down sobbing in a heartbeat.

So, the thing is, I've learned through the years how to recognize ACTING when I see it.

John McCain's got this persona, this ROLE that he plays in settings like this.  He gets this rueful expression on his face, drops his voice down a peg or two, gets all syrupy and sweet, and says, "My friends," right before he insults someone.

Nobody plays John McCain better than John McCain.

I think this is why I react to him the same way I did in school when a teacher accidentally screeched the chalk across the blackboard with that high-pitched squeal.

So...I had to know.

I HAD TO KNOW!

Were people falling for the act???  Didn't they KNOW it was all fake?  Don't they know that when he goes backstage he throws off his costume and becomes this mean petty little son of a bitch?

He may be a war hero, but that was then.  Now, he's just as nasty as he was in high school, when they actually CALLED him "McNasty."

So I started scrounging frantically for polls.

I had to know!

DON'T JUDGE ME!

And then I found it.

Ahhhhhh.  The sweetest drug of all.

Better, even, than that stupid CNN graph.

On the street, it has various names.  Perhaps you've heard some of them.

"Snap Poll."

"Insta-Poll."

What difference does it make?  It's all the same thing.  They manage to find a few hundred people who claim they are still uncommitted, and apparently call them up before the candidates have shaken hands or the first pundit has begun pontificating, and ask them what they thought.

This is before the NEWS even starts!  Before the show is even OVER! 

INSTA-REACTION!

And it was good.  Oh baby, it was all good.  People responded to Obama sometimes 20 points higher on McCain on so many things, and overwhelmingly thought he won the debate.

I can't WAIT for the next debate and these cool polls...Wait...What?

What did you say?

You didn't just say what I think you said did you?

That if I want to be part of the Program, I have to stop checking polls COMPLETELY?

Like...cold turkey?

No more polls AT ALL?

Not even when Sarah Palin accuses Obama of being a terrorist?

How about, like, one poll a week?

No?

I'm gettin' outta here.  I DON'T NEED YOU PEOPLE!

I CAN STOP WHENEVER I WANT!

You're not the boss of me!  GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!  Who the hell are you?

Oh...my husband...

Um...I'll see you guys, like...just a few short weeks from now.  After November 4.

Really.  I promise.

Really.

"There's just something about him.  I just can't trust him."

"I heard he's a Muslim, and that he's really Arab-American, not African-American."

"If he gets elected, he's going to appoint an all-black Cabinet, and start pushing a socialist agenda for inner-cities."

"I'm not prejudiced, but I heard he's a radical.  Just look at that black preacher he had."

"The thought of this man in the White House just scares me."

(Buttons sported at the Texas Republican convention): 

IF OBAMA GETS ELECTED, CAN WE STILL CALL IT THE WHITE HOUSE?


It took the wisdom of my sister, who I teasingly call a "recovering right-wing Republican," and who is now an enthusiastic supporter of Obama, to point out to me that the flood of e-mails she still receives every day with anti-Obama messages from "my former friends," are basically a cover for:  "We don't want no n-----r in the White House."

I confess, as hard as I've worked on this campaign, underground racism was something I'd been blind to, up to that point.  I mean, obviously, I'd seen overt racism, particularly on some vicious talk-radio shows, some FOX news coverage, and the absolute media blanket of the Jeremiah Wright videos.  But I hadn't seen it in the so-called "Muslim" scares.  I had thought the Muslim scares were about whipping up the old familiar the-terrorists-are-out-to-get-us crap we've been getting from Republicans since 9-11, but I now see that it's really more of a self-righteous cover for bigotry.

After all, it's okay to fear "Muslims" who want to blow us up, right?

Never mind the millions of Arab-Americans who live and work in this country, who were born here or became citizens here, who love America, as well as moderate Muslims worldwide,  who are devastated and appalled by how their beautiful religion has been desecrated by terrorists who hide their hatred behind the veil.

My heart aches for them as well, these days.  It seems to be okay lately to smear someone by calling them a "Muslim," as if decent, loving, law-abiding Muslims do not exist in the millions in our country and all over the world.  Not only are you insulting a presidential candidate by equating him with terrorists, but you are offending decent Muslims everywhere.

How would we feel if the entire world seemed to think that Timothy McVeigh represented Christianity?

My sister, who spent her formative years in Texarkana, Texas, is more intimately familiar with the redneck mind than I am, and as soon as she pointed it out, the scales fell away from my eyes, so to speak.

In other words, the slur not only offends and insults good Muslims everywhere, but it is also a slam to all African Americans.  It is no longer politically correct to call someone the "n" word so hey, we'll call him a Muslim instead!

I was aware all of this was swirling about in this campaign, of course, but it wasn't until I saw a powerful speech by AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka today that I realized it was time we Obama supporters dealt with this head-on.

The speech lasts about 8 or 9 minutes, and it absolutely gave me chillbumps.  It was bravest thing I've seen in the political arena in many a year.  I urge you all to set aside eight minutes of your day to watch this:

http://www.truthout.org/video/afl-cio-leader-richard-trumka-racism-and-obama

(I would like to point out, before I go on, that he received a standing ovation from the large union crowd he was addressing.)

There is an accompanying article to the speech that is just as enlightening:

http://www.truthout.org/100608L

What Mr. Trumka points out is that those of us who whole-heartedly support Barack Obama, and have been getting the kinds of protests from (particularly older) Democrats or Independents or moderate Republicans who say they can't support him because they "just don't trust him" or because "he's Muslim"--need to just get right in their faces and say something like, "Do you mean you can't support him because he's black?"

Most of the hold-outs will hasten to explain that they are not prejudiced, mind you, but they are concerned that he will "put black people over white people" in his policies and so on.

The first thing I would point out is that, of the closest advisors who have remained with Obama from the beginning of his campaign--only TWO are African American.  What that should say to them is that he does not show a pattern of selecting people for positions based on the fact that they are black, period.  He picks who he considers the best person, regardless of color, creed, or gender.

I would also challenge them to find one incident, anywhere, by anyone, of ANYONE who has ever seen Obama drop to his knees and pray toward Mecca even once, much less five times a day.  Ask them if Michelle wears sleeveless dresses.  These things are important because even among moderate Muslims, even if they do not veil, women usually cover their arms and dress modestly.

Point out the lack of logic that claims he can be a Muslim, and then turn around in the same breath and claim that he can be a radical Christian.  Which is it?  He has attended a Church of Christ in Chicago for 20 years.  How does this jive with being a Muslim?

If they say, "Well, he became a Christian for political purposes," explain that he became a Christian many years before he entered political life.

If they brush off those arguments with concerns that he will ram through affirmative-action measures, tell them the truth, that Obama has said that, while he is in favor of affirmative action laws, he does state that they should be changed to address ECONOMIC hardship, so that deserving white kids who come from impoverished areas might get the same opportunities to attend good schools as better-off white or black kids.  He said, plainly, that he thought his two daughters "have had it pretty good," and so does not think they should be favored over someone of another race from less advantaged backgrounds.

The (mostly older) voter you are talking with--a parent or grandparent or neighbor--will probably still harbor doubts, and this is not necessarily because they are bad people.  Scientific studies have shown that, when a lie is repeated enough times, the brain synapses literally re-wire themselves, so that, when shown the truth, the brain often refuses to accept it.

So what you have to do then is change the subject.  Talk about this person's daily life, and how it will improve under an Obama presidency or get much worse under a McCain presidency. 

For instance, John McCain wants to consider the premiums paid by our employers for health insurance (usually two or three times what they deduct from our checks for our own premiums)--to be taxable income.  What this would do is force most employers to drop their health insurance plans, leaving millions of Americans without health insurance.

We would then be forced to pay for our own private health insurance.  McCain says then, that $2500 a year, or $5000 a family tax cut would enable us to do so.  But the health insurance we would have to purchase would be at least $12,000 a year.

In other words, most of us would lose our company-based health insurance plans, and would not be able to afford more, even with a tax break.

Just today, McCain's closest economic advisor told the Wall Street Journal that, in order for McCain to cover the cost of those $5,000 per family tax breaks--he will have to SUBSTANTIALLY CUT MEDICARE AND MEDICAID.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122315505846605217.html

So we are getting screwed from every angle with a John McCain health insurance plan.  In fact, he stated flat-out, in an article this month in an insurance company magazine, that he thought the health care and insurance industry would benefit in the same way that the investment industry has benefitted, by massive de-regulation.

So, he wants to do to health insurance what his policies have done for our economy overall.  (See: one-trillion-dollar bail-out)

Barack Obama wants to set up a health insurance plan for Americans that is just like what is available to senators like himself and McCain--a wide choice of competing plans, and for those who can't afford it, subsidies to make it possible for them.  It would be almost universal, and it would not be "government-run" as McCain lies.

John McCain also favors cutting Social Security substantially, and encouraging people to "privately invest" their usual Social Security deductions.  This would mean that our future social security retirements would be almost entirely dependent on the roller-coaster of a ride that has been the stock markets.

Imagine how that would feel, right about now, if George W. Bush would have had his way at the beginning of his first term, when he first brought up the privatization of Social Security?

This is another thing that John McCain favors, and Obama says, NO WAY.

John McCain wants to continue the Iraq war indefinitely, at the tune of $10 billion a year, and says that we can cure our dependency on foreign oil by drilling more here in our own country and off-shore.

But only 3% of the world's oil supply can be located here in the U.S., and most of its biggest fields have already been tapped.  The much-vaunted Alaska is now down to one-third the oil production they once were, which is why Palin is so big on a natural gas pipeline.  Her state has been dependent on hand-outs from the oil industry and the government for so long, and they're looking for another good trough.

John McCain also thinks we can fix the economy through more massive tax cuts to the rich--he wants to make George W. Bush's tax cuts PERMANENT. 

These are the massive tax cuts that have contributed, in part, to the bankruptcy of the United States.

Barack Obama has set out a brilliant ten-year vision for the United States, one that will bring the war in Iraq to a responsible close, plow that money back into our own country. 

And he wants to invest in our nation's crumbling infrastructure,