When the people are finally sick and tired of being spoon-fed partisan BS coming from the corporate puppets we elect- and the tide has turned against the leader, they finally decide to try something new- that’s as old as democracy itself: Debate:

President Obama denied he was a Bolshevik, the Republicans denied they were obstructionists and both sides denied they were to blame for the toxic atmosphere clouding the nation’s political leadership….

What ensued was a lively, robust debate between a president and the opposition party that rarely happens in the scripted world of American politics.

For an hour and 22 minutes, with the cameras rolling, they thrust and parried, confronting each other’s policies and politics while challenging each other to meet in the middle. Intense and vigorous, sometimes even pointed, the discussion nonetheless proved remarkably civil and substantive for a relentlessly bitter era, an airing of issues that both sides often say they need more of.

via Off Script, Obama and the G.O.P. Vent Politely – NYTimes.com.

Long ago in American history- there were debates as well. The most famous being Lincoln/Douglas lasting 4.5 hours. In our short-attention-span, brain-dead country full of followers- who think “Avatar” is deep political thought- what happened yesterday can only be viewed as a baby step in the right direction.

Imagine a country where the Republicans and the Democrats actually had to stare each other down- in free-form debate- on what they will do once elected, and then actually be on record as having a position to be held accountable to?

Sort of like what Greg and I do daily- on the Dayton Grassroots Daily Show- where we discuss the discussion they had yesterday:

Debate is good for democracy. Let’s start requiring.

If you only watch one YouTube video endorsement of a candidate this season, this is the one to watch. In a measured, reasoned and well thought out series of answers, Colin Powell puts the smackdown on the direction of John McCain and the Republican party.

He flat out says that Sarah Palin isn’t fit to be president, and brushes aside any question of Obama’s ability to lead the country at war.

His dismissal of the Bill Ayers “controversy” and his questioning of why people even care if Barack Obama is a Muslim as opposed to is he, or isn’t he, shows why Powell is considered a master statesman.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Powell also says he doesn’t think that this country could stand two more Republican appointments to the Supreme Court.

For all that want to claim that Obama is the darling of the “liberal media” – this endorsement should be a clear indication that Obama is more than just a slick speaker, but a man of substance, or as Powell put it- a transformational leader.

Watching last night’s debate, I was pretty sure that other than McCain’s lack of poise when listening to Obama- that the undecided wouldn’t be energized one way or another. With the polls being as close as they have been, I’d say neither side can declare a victory.

But- or course, both sides think their guy won.

The operative word has been “change” in this election. First Obama owned the word, and now, McCain is trying to position himself as the “tested” maverick (as opposed to a testy one- but, that’s my opinion creeping in). I’m still terrified of McCain’s choice for VP, and I’m even more scared that their are signs popping up saying SARAH in big letters and McCain down below it.

It wasn’t till tonight, sitting and watching the movie “Election” that it hit me- when the “third party” candidate stands up and says:

Who cares about this stupid election? We all know it doesn’t matter who gets elected president of Carver. Do you really think it’s going to change anything around here; make one single person smarter or happier or nicer? The only person it does matter to is the one who gets elected. The same pathetic charade happens every year, and everyone makes the same pathetic promises just so they can put it on their transcripts to get into college. So vote for me, because I don’t even want to go to college, and I don’t care, and as president I won’t do anything. The only promise I will make is that if elected I will immediately dismantle the student government, so that none of us will ever have to sit through one of these stupid assemblies again!
[Student body erupts in huge cheers]
Tammy Metzler: Or don’t vote for me… who cares? Don’t vote at all!

It was the part about “everyone makes the same pathetic promises” that struck home.

McCain’s answer is to control spending, promise less regulation, lower taxes and smaller government- while attacking Obama as a “liberal” who will turn over your health care to the government (even though that’s who takes care of John’s health care).

Both of them remind each other of all their votes against things that are tied together with other things- as if voting records in Congress have anything to do with true leadership.

Obama talks about protecting the middle class, tax cuts, providing health care, getting out of Iraq and investing in education, but, of course- he apparently isn’t old enough to lead our country or experienced enough if you listen to McCain.

The reality is, Congress is what actually makes the laws, and after listening to the two of them evade giving a real answer on what has to happen to straighten out the economic disaster in this country- I started fantasizing about what someone like Ross Perot would say right now. Not that our country would be smart enough to take a third choice seriously or even allow a third voice.

We’ve devolved into a society that is binary in nature. Coke or Pepsi, Red or Blue States (note- Coke is Red, Pepsi blue) – it’s as if we’ve simplified the system to the point of pointlessness. With our ballot process still in question by some- and the Electoral College still in place, we’ve even stripped the people of their voices down through arcane machinations that gave us our current failure in chief.

Tammy Metzler even urged people not to vote, which, in previous elections has been the case- with our “democracy” lucky to have 50% voter turnout. At some point, shouldn’t we be backing up and looking at this system and asking if the founding fathers actually got it right?

In the parliamentary system, when things start breaking like our economy, there is an election pronto. We’re still tied to a set schedule, which forces us to wait 4 years to vote the bastards out. We’re spending $5 billion on elections this year- that’s a billion more than the tax cuts for the oil companies that Obama accuses McCain of supporting.

There is no question in mind that Obama is the better choice and the right choice to be our next president, but, the real question is- are we electing someone to be president of a system that’s totally and completely broken beyond repair? Has our system failed us?

Looking at the economic mess- the war- our standing amongst other nations- and our mud-slinging, incredibly expensive system of elections, maybe it’s time to consider a real change- to something that we can afford and works.

That would be a real change.

I got this in my e-mail today, and thought I’d share. No, I didn’t write it.

I’m a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..

• If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.”
• Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers,  a quintessential American story.
• If your name is Barack you’re a  radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
• Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.
• Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
• Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded.
• If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor,  spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4  years in the United States Senate representing a state of  13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you  don’t have any real leadership experience.
• If your total resume is: local weather girl,  4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.
• If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.
• If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.
• If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
• If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you’re very responsible.
• If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.
• If your husband is nicknamed “First Dude”,  with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA,your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Reminds me of how GWB got a free pass on Vietnam, while Kerry, who actually went- was some sort of traitor according to the “general electorate.”

If there is one Bush legacy that I hope can leave the USA in January, it’s our State of Fear.

In fact, when I went to hear Senator Obama at the Nutter Center back in February, he talked about not being afraid anymore. This was after the TSA took my little Swiss Army pen knife at the door.The one with a blade shorter than the keys on my key chain. After 6 years with Special Forces- I can tell you, I could do more damage with a sharpened key, a knitting needle, or even a ballpoint pen (all allowed on a plane) than that little pen knife.

Sure I understand that this is the future President of the United States, but, for the most powerful man in the world, with a bevy of trained Secret Service people around him to be afraid of me with a 1.5″ blade makes me wonder if we’ve got anyone with a brain at the top.

So, he also owes me a better explanation of why he declined public financing. What, is he really afraid that his message of “Change” and “Hope” can only win with a fat bankroll? Is John McCain and his “Straight talk Express” really that formidable as an opponent? John McCain should be as scary as that pocketknife.

Then, we’ve got a flip-flop on FISA. Now it’s OK to spy on the people who’ve put our “trust in God” as it says on the money we use- but, only if the US Government and the telecommunications companies can listen in.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think Barack Obama is the best possible choice (now that Gravel and Kucinich got sent packing), and I believe that we can do much to mend fences across the globe with a black (but not too black) man with a Muslim name running the country. But, I just wish we’d have a man with a spine.

Shouldn’t be afraid of pen knives, elderly x-POW’s or the Telecommunications industry or especially, the people of your own country.

The real enemy is fear, and I fear most that Senator Obama has lost touch with the true fears of my fellow citizens- that we’ll lose our jobs, our homes, our access to health care or that Wall Street has gambled away our country’s wealth, while George Bush was busy- taking away my pocket knife.

I won’t be at Stivers tomorrow to hear Senator Obama, not until I get my pocket knife back.

It’s time to realize that making more gas won’t solve the problem. Especially, when we start making it out of corn. No where does gasoline fit into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, however, food sure does.

If we continue to take corn off the table and put it in the gas tank, we’ll be headed for riots in the streets sooner than later.

If we must insist on making ethanol, we need to look to kudzu, a fast growing weed, that requires very little extra effort by the farmer, hemp (yeah, ganja makes better ethanol) or other non-edible bio waste (corn stalks) etc.

The fact that Obama is still supporting corn subsidies makes me question if he’s already started sucking from the teat of the lobbyists:

Marketplace: Campaigns clash over ethanol
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” back in May of 2007, Barack Obama defended his support for government subsidies for ethanol.

Barack Obama: If we decided that we were going to make the kind of investment I’ve proposed — $150 billion — then I think at the end of the decade, we could have an auto industry that has significantly reduced our consumption of oil.

About the same time, also on “Meet the Press,” McCain explained that he’s against subsidies, but he said he’s changed his position on ethanol itself.

John McCain: When oil is $10, $15 a barrel, then ethanol does not makes sense. When oil is $60 plus a barrel, than ethanol does make sense. I still oppose the subsidies to it.

That is where the two presumptive candidates differ. Some of Obama’s critics wonder why he’s still supporting government subsidies for corn-based ethanol.

Richard Wiles is the executive director of the Environmental Working Group.

Richard Wiles: I think it’s clearly time to revisit ethanol mandates.

Obama has said the federal government might have to rethink its support for ethanol made from corn because of skyrocketing corn prices. But the New York Times reports some of Obama’s top supporters and advisers have ties to the ethanol industry. The Obama campaign says he supports ethanol on its merits. McCain, meanwhile, says we should lift tariffs on imported sugar cane and use that to make ethanol.

But would any of these suggestions help voters right away? No.

Joel Darmstadter of Resources for the Future says the real short term solution isn’t sexy enough. It’s conservation.

The best first move we could make toward conservation is to eliminate all corporate welfare and instead start offering tax breaks for those who walk to work (an idea I first floated here in 2006).

I just watched the Obama/Clinton debate and came away wondering if there was anything said worth hearing. I must admit, Hillary wins as a stand-up comedienne, with a few good quips. And the “how would you use George W. Bush as a statesman” question was an open door that neither took.

Yet, I was hoping for more, waiting for something that said hands down, one is a winner- and it wasn’t there.

I’m sure when it’s either one of them facing McCain the answer will be clear, but, in choosing between these two, it’s easy to understand that people have their own quirks which favor one or the other which is fine and dandy.

I thought both of them failed miserably on the early question of taking each other as running mates (to which I’m absolutely opposed to).

If there was one time when I really wanted to jump through the set and go for the jugular- it was when Clinton blamed her faulty memory of gunfire in Bosnia as she got off the plane on “lack of sleep”- I was waiting for Obama to say- well, I guess when you get the call at 3am your judgment might not be so hot, eh?

For me, it’s still clearly Obama, just because of the wider support base, the swearing off of the PAC money and the move away from dynasty politics.

An astute politico that I know, thought this would be the debate where the gloves came off. It obviously wasn’t.

I’m thinking the problem lies in the structure of these “debates” which are more like interviews than true debate. Needless to say, if you are in Pennsylvania right now, it must suck watching TV with the constant barrage of political spots- and robo-calls ringing off the hook.

If America really wants change- it’s time to really consider changing this process altogether. Let’s take the money out of it, limit the length of the campaigns, make sure the popular vote matters and maybe even start throwing the bastards out when they get caught lying to us.

Thoughts from you?

If you are a serious Dem and already a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) specialist- in this primary, it’s critical that you sign-up on the Obama site – instead of working your normal shift with the County. Sign up at http://my.barackobama.com/OHgotvcaptain

They are targeting surefire Obama supporters to make sure this doesn’t come down to the super delegates or some kind of strange “compromise” on Florida and Michigan delegates. There are no do-overs on the rules after the game is played.

Since the party will only be concentrating on their few primary races- and can’t try to take sides on the Presidential- it’s key that if you want Obama to win, you switch over for the primary.

Thanks!

I went walking for Obama and my own campaign today. One of the advantages of being endorsed- is access to voter data and the ability to pick who you want to campaign to- and what info you want to gather. I don’t have access to that system.

The Obama lists were segregated by age- 40 and under- and it would seem- undecided and dems. I was walking a precinct in Kettering, by the intersection of Woodman and Patterson, by Research Park. I got much better response for my own campaign than I did Senator Obama. In fact, I didn’t get a single person who was decided and Dem. Quite a few Republicans- and a lot of people not home.

While there is no doubt that the Obama staff know what they are doing based on the primaries so far- I would have preferred to have every voter in the house on my list than just the young ones. If I’m going to knock and gather data- I want all the data if someone is home.

Thanks to all the open minded R’s who said they would look at my site and consider voting in the Democratic primary. You made my day.

I lent the Obama campaign a laser printer and some office chairs- I think it’s great to see so many people showing up and wanting to help. They have phone lists for people to work- just take your cell down to the Kettering tower if you want to get involved.

Thanks to Abby for letting me leave a box of my literature at the Obama HQ for anyone interested. It’s nice to see when Dems work to be inclusive instead of exclusive like the Montgomery County Democratic Party.

When your tag line goes global, you know you’re on to something. “Just do it” for Nike works around the world, and apparently, Obama’s “Yes we can” is getting the Italian treatment by a reformer who believes true leadership isn’t built on compromise:

NPR: ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ Shakes Up Italian Elections
‘Mr. Nice Guy’ Takes a Page from Obama

While Berlusconi is flashy, with tinted hair and face-lifts, his new rival on the left is just the opposite. Clean-cut 52-year-old Veltroni is nicknamed “Mr. Nice Guy.”

A former communist who openly adores American culture, Veltroni just stepped down as the popular two-term mayor of Rome. As leader of the new Democratic Party, he has modeled his campaign after Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in the United States.

“Yes we can, yes we can,” Veltroni says. “Barack Obama first said this when the road seemed closed, and now it’s open wide,” he adds.

The slogan has been translated as “si puo fare” and put to music.

In a major break with the past, Veltroni has vowed his party will run alone, not in coalition with little parties that analysts say are in great part responsible for Italy’s unstable governments and legislative paralysis.

Trying to bring Americans together, not just Democrats or Republicans, requires someone with the ability to remind us that “We Can” as opposed to “I Will” – and it shows one of the primary differences between the Obama movement and the Clinton establishment. If we “Hope” to see “Change” we need to be able to communicate that America has made a change. The fact that an Italian is willing to associate his campaign with an American presidential candidate, in a world that is full of anti-Americanism thanks to our current Commander in Chief, further reinforces my belief that Obama has demonstrated his ability to become the Statesman President that we are so desperately missing.

Just read this in “Confessions of an ad man” by the real Dead David Ogilvy- “The use of advertising to sell statesmen is the ultimate vulgarity”

That’s why I’m not trying to raise a million bucks to run ads in major media. That’s why I’ve had a site for years- with my thoughts and ideas. That’s why I say “there are no perfect candidates” in our imperfect system. And, because, I hope there is more to our elections than soundbites and snappy videos (although, I think mine are all worthy of your time).

So, an Obama supporter puts out this amazing, inspiring, charismatic video that makes you feel awesome- and then some other Obama supporter does a cheeky knock-off to slam McCain. And while it’s all fun and games- it’s not how I want you to decide on who to vote for.

and the McCain mix:

Imagine an election without this kind of emotional manipulation, one based on ideas, credibility, responsibility, accountability and that didn’t cost 2 billion dollars.

Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to pay for the campaigns, the media time, and kick the lobbyists out of the halls of our government.

If this is what my profession is adding to politics, David Ogilvy was right. It’s vulgar and it’s not helping.

[UPDATE] Juan sent me this “Hillary for you and me” video- which has comments disabled on YouTube-  if you ever questioned how marketing can go terribly wrong- from the “Hilfiger” like “Hillary” logo- to the music- to the message, watch this: