Tag Archives: Obama

In death there’s hope..

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First of all RIP Ted Kennedy. His was an epic life all the more wonderous for the shadow of those around him. A contrast of sorts, a frequent communicant who championed the liberal agenda, a Kennedy who never became president, a legislator beyond excellence. Fabled by his famous older brothers he carved his own destiny and now casts a long shadow of his own over US and indeed world affairs.

Whilst the particular era perhaps ended long ago, there was still a tragic finality in reading that Senator Kennedy’s remains were being flown to Arlington national cemetary after the Boston service, to be laid beside his brothers Jack and Bobby Kennedy in the family plot. Three brothers now all in the ground.

Edward Kennedy did have one shot at the presidency of course, in 1980 when he was beaten for the Democratic nomination, in what he knew then must be his last attempt, he made a poignant post ballot speech, for a man who saw the hopes slip from his grasp only a few hours before but raised himself for the hopes of many and delivered a historic concession “the dream will never die”..

On a slightly brighter note, and am sure the man himself would grant a wry smile, I noted in a side column how the hopefuls are already gathering to contest the now vacant senate seat left behind. Of course with a full slate of legislative progress to be made and at times stormy assembly, that extra Democrat seat cannot be left idle for long. Not that the aspirants will mind an accelerated progression process.

There’s a story told about the late Labour leader John Smith. His own funeral of course was the scene of fevered plotting with the celebrated Blair / Brown feud at full peak of which he would have wholeheartedly approved. On hearing of a bereavement in the ranks, after making the appropriate noises and a suitable solemnity to the relatives, he would turn to his confidantes and allow a sparkle in the eye and a rub of the hands as his thoughts darted to the by-election ahead and the selections to be made with his famous phrase ..  ”Where there’s death there’s hope” …

The baby and the bathwater

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I read two opposing accounts on the controversy in US healthcare this weekend and ironically enough I agreed with both. One was contained within the ‘Open Door’ magazine, a catholic pamphlet that is generally picked up on the way out of church (although this particular copy caught my eye in Tesco Maynooth), the other was in the UK Guardian, a left-leaning publication not normally given to religious regards.

Obama’s health service plans are in the news at present of course, as a debate ranges in the States over his plans to replace the current insurance only system with a national program for state cover. Some right wing critics in the States have seized upon supposed failures of the British public (or socialised as they say) health system to beat the reforming ideas of the new Healthcare push.

The ‘Open Door’ led with a front page missive upon the sanctity of human life and railed against the evils of disconnected secular beauracracies and the spectres of ‘death doctors’, putative panels with deity like powers on life and death. Forced euthanasia and mass abortions were cited as catastrophic consequences of socialised system.

I agreed with the author in the sense that I too would regard such consequences as apoclayptic if they were indeed to happen and I would very much concur with the author’s view on the sanctity of human life. However neither am I convinced that such things are contained within the healthcare package, rather a case of misrepresentation.

Which allowed me to find common cause with a quite different assessment of the plans contained within the Guardian newspaper this weekend, one which defended the plans and vilified the state-side critics. Private healthcare at the extreme as practised in many ways in the states literally is a life and death sitation for those caught in the middle. In this case of course ability to pay is the decider rather than either man or god which is a far less christian conundrum altogether.

Whilst many conservatives may take issue with Obama’s pro-choice views I believe such considerations to be misplaced at the heart of this debate. I believe him to be a fundamentally good man (in every sense including the classic biblical connotation of the word) and I believe the Democrats to be a good party. So Whilst I empathatise with the concerns of the religous orders, I fear the financial fire power of the US insurers is skewing the debate on many axes and for far baser motives, thus obscuring the real benefits the plan can bring at a very fundamental and christian level. As much as God must want to protect the unborn child, equally he must want to protect the poor sick and needy. So let’s get the balance right with an informed debate, but let’s make sure we throw out neither the baby nor the bathwater…

A series of unfortunate events.. (and a new website!)

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Fanfare greeted the arrival in Dublin last night of Obama’s online mogul, Joe Rospars. He trades under BlueStateDigital and they’re a pretty serious outfit.. (If you don’t immediately get the blue state thing just go listen to Obama’s convention 04 speech)..

Obama is credited with an unprecedented online campaign

Joe was in town to announce a new partnership with Fianna Fail on the parties new website. Whilst in town there was a gig organised to allow him share his wisdom.

I received an invite via the normal channels (FF press office) and it was fairly standard, FF hosting an audience with an online guru, etc etc so far so excellent, and I was really hoping to get along. I was a bit miffed at the short notice and as it turned out logistics would not permit my attendance but it was a great step in the right direction. As someone interested in Obama, FF, politics and technology it pretty much ticked all the boxes for me.

So far, so good. Unfortunately things started to go wrong. The firm charged with pulling the thing together was in hybrid mode, as an FF Cllr who runs his own media firm. Nothing wrong with that, and contrary to popular perception perhaps, Cllrs. do actually need a day job, being slightly (well actually majorly!) less well paid than our town cousins in the big house.

However the problem was whilst one audience were invited to an FF event (albeit a small ‘ff’ – a public talk hosted while he was in town with the party) another section seemingly had no idea there was a political tie-in. A separate invite had been fired into the blogosphere via the tech/media wing of the organising outfit which alas skipped over the basic premise. Result was a crowd of bloggers turned up to hear Rospars but seemed to pop a fuse when the FF logo hovered into view. I can’t speak for the quality of the event not physically being present but reports vary on whether Rospars spoke for 40 or 5 minutes. I certainly would have been annoyed had I cancelled other arrangements and travelled specially to Dublin (as I almost did) only to hear a 5 minute talk but a 40 minute one may have been worth it. Who knows but I will check out the video which I believe is coming onstream shortly.

Long story short an online backlash ensued here here here and here for starters. Some wailing, some gnashing, some grumbling and some grievences. Some gems and some gyrations. I can understand why the guys are complaining btu I can’t help wondering would there have been the same reaction had it been a Campbells soup ad he was in town to launch (for example). But absolutely, the thing should have been made clear what it was all about from the start. I have a slightly different grievance to the rest of the gang possibly, in that I can’t understand why it wasn’t shouted from the rooftops that Rospars was in town and here with FF. Well it was in the invite I got but not in the one that went out through Stawberry media. Lets all sing off the same hymn sheet in future is the message fairly loud and clear and there’s been lots of public mea culpa from the principal protagonist / central cuplrit.

I’m looking forward to getting the vid-cast of the talk itself, and hopefully distilling some nuggets, also looking forward to taking the new site for a test drive. I have a personal reservation as to how well online tactics can be applied on a local level (e.g. for a local election campaign) as opposed to a massive (300 million) catchment for a US presidential one. I’ve been trying out some tools, obviously the blog itself but also twitter and facebook and so forth and have some mixed views. Twitter is an interesting social tool. The blog is an excellent way to disseminate information. Facebook I’ve a few complaints about. But I may return to that theme another day.

Anyway make your own mind up – here’s the new site: www.fiannafail.ie

Clinton calls up the paper cumainn

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Dems and RepsI’ve just been catching up the latest developments stateside over at realclearpolitics.com and of course the big news this weekend is that Obama has clinched three more states namely Washington, Louisiana and Nebraska givining him momentum, if not yet a delegate lead, over his rival Ms. Clinton.

The NY times has an excellent election dashboard, where you can check out the individual primary results for all candidates and toggle between delegate count, percentage won, and colour coded maps showing where the various candidates and parties are staking claim.

It’s also interesting to review where each candidate stands on the issues, and indeed on what the defining issues are. Obama’s most ofted quoted criticism of late is that his policy platform fails to live up to the high blown rhetoric but from his actions and own words there’s not a lot of clear blue water between him and Hillary and where there is, well Obama wins in my book (e.g. He favours direct and non-prejudicial dialogue with Iran over Hillary’s more hawkish sanctions and meet on my terms approach). Really though within each camp the candidates are pretty much on message.

Democrat DonkeyIn short the Democrats are for: abortion, universal health care, caps on emissions to combat climate change, revoking tax cuts for wealthiest to fund the poorest, dovish in varying degrees on foreign policy;

Republican ElephantRepublicans favour: Healthcare system driven by free-market economics, ban on abortion, commit and continue with tax cuts, hawkish on foreign policy. Clinton is the closet of the Democrats to the Republicans and McCain is the closest of the Republicans to the Democrats which in theory would drive any contest towards the centre but in reality Clinton is a hate figure for many Republicans so the only cross-over would be Democrats to McCain, with quite possibly a bad-blood effect if Clinton wins the nomination with a dirty tricks contest.

It’s started for sure. The Clintons weren’t shy bringing the race card into play early on when Saint Bill threw away three decades of mutual kinship with African-America by sterotyping Obama as the ‘Black Candidate’. In reference to the Senator’s landslide win in South Carolina, Bill’s response “Sure, well Jesse Jackson did well here too”.

Another trick which could turn a whole lot of delegates sour is the cynical way the Clinton camp is now talking about Florida and Michigan’s “ghost delegates” i.e. the rogue primaries where noone campaigned by agreement cos the party ruled the contests out of order (but Hillary left her name on the ballot). There are now whispers Hillary will try have those seated at convention. I wouldn’t claim every delegate voting at a Fianna Fáil convention is a round-the-clock party activist (the phenomen of paper cumainn occurs in all parties, where delegates come to life and seek representation at election times) but what Clinton is up to would mark a new low and leave a serious bad taste if it proved the decider.

Whilst her latest twist on the race card has been to abandon the black vote as lost irrecovably but focus instead on the hispanics in a deliberately polarising gesture. Obama’s message of unity is being undermined by his party colleague but the good news is, “It aint working honey”, he’s still pulling in the numbers from all demographics.

Lastly in a brief look at how ethnic persuasions may come into play in Ireland’s next election we know at this stage there’ll be several hundred thousand registered polish voters in the 2009 local elections. Apparently over 70% of those registered will vote so there’s sure to be efforts made by all parties to woo them. Whether they go with the big parties, elect their own single-issue independent types or whether they simply fragment across the board remains to be seen.

Although with the changing economic tides, it’s possible there will be some more population movement to come before then. In what might be a sign of the times, I was overnight in a hotel recently and for the first time in about five years all the staff were Irish. And I’m afraid to say when I asked them to service the room, the surly look on their faces was unmistakeable in any language..