COMMEMORATION OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY 21 JANUARY 2008








On Monday, January 21, 2008, we observe the national holiday that honors the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This commemoration of Dr. King's birthday is a celebration of his life and values, a time when we remember his work and his dreams. Coretta Scott King has described this day as one of:

"...interracial and intercultural cooperation and sharing. No other day of the year brings so many peoples from different cultural backgrounds together in such a vibrant spirit of brother and sisterhood. Whether you are African-American, Hispanic or Native American, whether you are Caucasian or Asian American, you are part of the great dream Martin Luther King, Jr. had for America."

In keeping with Dr. King's values, this is also a day of learning, commitment, and service to the community. During his life, Dr. King believed that "everybody can be great because everybody can serve." Commitment to service and taking action to improve the communities in which we live and work is a way we all have of putting into practice Dr. King's philosophy and dream.

There are many events and commemorations, parades and festivals, services and ceremonies taking place in cities throughout our region on January 21 and the days preceding. I encourage you to take the opportunity of this observance to think about the issues and events surrounding the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., and, with those in your community. Remember! Celebrate! Act!



On the eve of Martin Luther King Day—just moments before the start of the Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina—John Edwards’ campaign released a letter sent by King’s son, Martin Luther King III, to the former North Carolina senator, praising him for his commitment to end poverty and injustice and calling for all candidates to emulate his initiative.

“I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America,” King wrote. “My dad was a fighter…Keep fighting. My father would be proud.”
Edwards and King held a private meeting at the King Center in Atlanta on Saturday, and though details of that encounter were not disclosed to the press, the two men discussed Dr. King’s legacy and their “shared commitment to fighting poverty,” according to Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for Edwards’ campaign.

In his letter, King addressed the aims of Edwards’ campaign mission: “I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.”

The letter could not have come at a more opportune time for Edwards, who was asked at the end of Monday night’s debate, “If Dr. Martin Luther King were alive today…why do you think he would or why should he endorse you?”

Without hesitation, Edwards said because he has focused his cause on the “two biggest issues that Dr. King stood for, which are the issues of equality and ending poverty in America.”


January 20, 2008

The Honorable John E. Edwards
410 Market Street
Suite 400
Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Dear Senator Edwards:

It was good meeting with you yesterday and discussing my father’s legacy. On the day when the nation will honor my father, I wanted to follow up with a personal note.
There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of back and forth in the political arena over my father’s legacy. It is a commentary on the breadth and depth of his impact that so many people want to claim his legacy. I am concerned that we do not blur the lines and obscure the truth about what he stood for: speaking up for justice for those who have no voice.

I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.
You know as well as anyone that the 37 million people living in poverty have no voice in our system. They don’t have lobbyists in Washington and they don’t get to go to lunch with members of Congress. Speaking up for them is not politically convenient. But, it is the right thing to do.

I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign. I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.

From our conversation yesterday, I know this is personal for you. I know you know what it means to come from nothing. I know you know what it means to get the opportunities you need to build a better life. And, I know you know that injustice is alive and well in America, because millions of people will never get the same opportunities you had.

I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes. My father was not driven by an illusory vision of a perfect society. He was driven by the certain knowledge that when people of good faith and strong principles commit to making things better, we can change hearts, we can change minds, and we can change lives.

So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father’s words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.

Sincerely,
Martin L. King, III

NOT BY FIRE, BY THE BALLOT, NEXT TIME.

I am always fascinated when white people, particularly white politicians, say what they really mean.
Hillary Clinton decided that she needed to minimize the role that Martin Luther King Jr., and by extension African-Americans, played in securing their own civil rights.

Some one should tell Hillary that we have a National Holiday honoring the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and the civil rights heroes who used non-violent direct action to move America from apartheid to an open access society. I suppose she would do away with The Martin Luther King National Holiday Day and replace it with a President Lyndon Johnson National Holiday since he was the Washington politician that she wants to credit with the success of the Civil Rights Movement.

She said "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It took a president to get it done. The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president capable of action."


Hillary would have us believe that it wasn't the courage of Martin Luther King and local Montgomery residents in 1960 standing up to legalized white supremacy in their hometown that began to change America, it was the white man.






Hillary would have us believe that it wasn't Rosa Parks who had had enough and refused to sit in the back of the bus that got things started, it was the white man.
In 1944, athletic star Jackie Robinson took a similar stand in a confrontation with a United States Army officer in Fort Hood, Texas, refusing to move to the back of a bus. Robinson was brought before a court-martial, which acquitted him. The NAACP had accepted and litigated other cases before, such as that of Irene Morgan ten years earlier, which resulted in a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court on Commerce Clause grounds. That victory, however, overturned state segregation laws only insofar as they applied to travel in interstate commerce, such as interstate bus travel. Black activists had begun to build a case around the arrest of a 15-year-old girl, Claudette Colvin, a student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery. On March 2, 1955, Colvin was handcuffed, arrested and forcibly removed from a public bus when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. She claimed that her constitutional rights were being violated. At the time, Colvin was active in the NAACP's Youth Council, a group to which Rosa Parks served as Advisor.




Hillary would have us believe that it wasn't John Lewis and others facing down police dogs, billy clubs and tear gas in Montgomery and Selma, it was the white man.










Hillary would have us believe that it wasn't Fannie Lou Hamer telling the racist Democrats at the 1964 convention that Black people were sick and tired of being sick and tired, it was the white man.



She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi's "Freedom Summer" for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. Her plain-spoken manner and fervent belief in the Biblical righteousness of her cause gained her a reputation as an electrifying speaker and constant champion of civil rights.
In the summer of 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, or "Freedom Democrats" for short, was organized with the purpose of challenging Mississippi's all-white and anti-civil rights delegation to the Democratic National Convention of that year as not representative of all Mississippians. Hamer was elected Vice-Chair.
The Freedom Democrats' efforts drew national attention to the plight of African-Americans in Mississippi, and represented a challenge to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for a second term; their success would mean that other Southern delegations, who were already leaning toward Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, would publicly break from the convention's decision to nominate Johnson — meaning in turn that he would almost certainly lose those states' electoral votes in the election. Hamer, singing her signature hymns, drew a great deal of attention from the media, enraging Johnson, who referred to her in speaking to his advisors as "that illiterate woman".
Hamer was invited, along with the rest of the MFDP officers, to address the Convention's Credentials Committee. She recounted the problems she had encountered in registration, and the ordeal of the jail in Winona, and, near tears, concluded:
"All of this is on account we want to register [sic], to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings - in America?"
In Washington, D.C., President Johnson called an emergency press conference in an effort to divert press coverage away from Hamer's testimony; but many television networks ran the speech unedited on their late news programs. The Credentials Committee received thousands of calls and letters in support of the Freedom Democrats.
Johnson then dispatched several trusted Democratic Party operatives to attempt to negotiate with the Freedom Democrats, including Senator Hubert Humphrey (who was campaigning for the Vice-Presidential nomination), Walter Mondale, Walter Reuther, and J. Edgar Hoover. They suggested a compromise which would give the MFDP two seats in exchange for other concessions, and secured the endorsement of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for the plan. But when Humphrey outlined the compromise, saying that his position on the ticket was at stake, Hamer, invoking her Christian beliefs, sharply rebuked him:
"Do you mean to tell me that your position is more important than four hundred thousand black people's lives? Senator Humphrey, I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote. I had to leave the plantation where I worked in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Now if you lose this job of Vice-President because you do what is right, because you help the MFDP, everything will be all right. God will take care of you. But if you take [the nomination] this way, why, you will never be able to do any good for civil rights, for poor people, for peace, or any of those things you talk about. Senator Humphrey, I'm going to pray to Jesus for you."




It was in 1955 when Black college students in North Carolina began "sitting-in" at segregated lunch counters to peacefully protest an immoral and unjust system of racial apartheid, but why credit the people who gave their lives for the struggle when all credit is due to the great white father, in his ultimate, eternal benevolence, for finally deciding to recognize Black people as human beings? I wonder where he got that idea?



Johnson didn't change America. Johnson reacted in 1964 to the changes in America. For that he deserves some credit, but never mistake the man in the suit for the soldiers on the street. The difference is obvious: Johnson isn't the one whose life was ended by a sniper's bullet.

This is the kind of revisionist history I expect from the most extreme white supremacists, and political opportunists.

This kind of careless discrediting of Black heroes and martyrs will have a decided effect on the Black vote in South Carolina. Between this and Bill claiming Hillary is tougher than Nelson Mandela, has pretty much solidified the image that whatever happened in the 90s, Bill Clinton really thinks he was the first Black President and all those Black people marching in peaceful protest were really white people in black-face. It was Al Jolson, Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden, the original Amos and Andy.




With nomination contests in lily-white Iowa and New Hampshire settled, minority voting power now moves into the spotlight.
Historical realities suggest that Blacks and Hispanics won't play much of a role in determining the presidential nominees. But this year's Democratic primary and caucus schedule was designed specifically to give increased influence to minorities, particularly Latinos.
Voters in both groups are energized: Blacks by the early successes of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Latinos by the intense, sometimes xenophobic debate over immigration. But it's far from clear how those influences will play off each other.
Nevada's caucuses on Jan. 19 will give an early showcase of Hispanic voting.
When South Carolina Democrats hold their primary on Jan. 26—the state GOP contest is Jan. 19—the choices of substantial numbers of Black voters will be tallied for the first time in this election.
Obama's stunning victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Iowa caucuses and strong second in New Hampshire's primary showed he could win white votes. But some say the South Carolina contest offers a new test of his viability: Can he energize Black voters in places where their numbers could help him win in November?
Race has played a key role in American politics for as long as there have been Democrats and Republicans.

In 1956, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was able to garner 39 percent of the Black vote, notes Donald Bositis, a senior research associate for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Black think tank in Washington, D.C.
But with the rise of newly converted Republicans like Sen. Strom Thurmond and their efforts to thwart civil rights legislation, the GOP could manage only 6 percent of the Black vote in 1964.
"And that's when the change was over," says Bositis.
The historical association between the Democrats and the working class, coupled with the election of John F. Kennedy as the first Roman Catholic president, accounts for the Latino affiliation with that party—Florida Cubans being the great exception. Democratic candidate Bill Richardson-Lopez, who cited JFK as one of his inspirations, showcased his Hispanic roots before he pulled out of the race Thursday.
"The vast majority of Hispanics were, are and remain working class," says Gary M. Segura, an associate professor of American politics at the University of Washington. "And so, not surprisingly, that means that they have economic interests which are historically more coincident with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party."
According to the Pew Research Center, Hispanics are twice as likely to identify themselves as Democrat than Republican. For Blacks, it's 10 1/2 times.
"There is in the United States a racial tone to the political parties," says Bernard N. Grofman, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine. It's something "that nobody wants to talk about very much, because in some ways it's really very, very embarrassing."
Both minority groups lag behind whites in voter registration. The latest census figures indicate that while 71 percent of voting- eligible whites are registered, the rate drops to 61 percent among Blacks and 54 percent for Latinos.
The conventional wisdom has been that as the nation's population moves toward a minority majority, its political complexion will become more Democratic. Or, as Grofman puts it, the "browning of America will result in the bluing."
But in studying the South, Grofman—author of the voting-rights history "Quiet Revolution in the South"—found a correlation between the percentage of a state's Black voting population and increases in white support for Republican candidates.
Grofman notes there have been small but measurable Latino shifts toward the GOP as Hispanic homeownership rates, conversions to evangelical Protestantism and generational distance from immigration increase. And since many Latinos identify racially as white, he says we may see a "mimicking" of the electoral "white flight" from the Democratic Party he identified in the South.
A Hispanic-black divide is already showing in the nomination battle.
A California poll by the Field Research Corp. found Clinton's lead over Obama had dropped from 25 percentage points in October to just 14 points late last month. However, the same survey gave Clinton a 20- point lead among Latinos, who comprise 14 percent of voters there.
Segura's polling in Nevada showed heavy support for Clinton among likely Latino voters there, too.
The Democrats have been registering Latinos there by the thousands. The first two Fridays of each month, the Democratic party sets up voter-registration tables outside the federal court chamber in Las Vegas where new citizens are sworn in.
"We average about a hundred every Friday," says Andres Ramirez, Latino outreach coordinator for the state party. "From time to time, we'll get a thousand a week."
Latino registration rates in the state have risen from just 4 percent in 1996 to more than 10 percent. Given the "very anti-immigrant" stances taken by the state GOP, which adopted an English-only platform that would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegals, Ramirez is confident that most of those political newcomers will be voting Democratic.

If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, Segura and others wonder what effect "black-brown competition" will have on the Latino vote this fall. Segura agrees with Grofman that it's dangerous to assume the two groups will complement each other at the ballot box.
"It's not clear that there would be a lot of enthusiasm for an African-American from a Latino electorate," he says.
Vanderbilt University Law School professor Carol M. Swain, author of "Black Faces, Black Interests," is one African-American who won't be voting for Obama—nor, likely, for any Democrat. She says none of the party's candidates has articulated a position "that really takes into consideration the harm that's being done to working-class Americans" by competition from illegal immigrants.
She doesn't feel "that shared race is a strong enough position to support a candidate."
But experts say many Black voters may take the opposite tack when they cast ballots in South Carolina, where Blacks make up about half of the Democratic electorate.
Donald Aiesi, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., thinks turnout in the party primary there will be 4- to-1 Black.
And he predicts that "the race pull" will be strong—even though, he adds, "I don't think anybody's going to talk to a pollster or anybody else and say, `Well, with me it's ultimately the idea that my son or daughter could be elected.'"
Garrett, the mortician, says it's time to try something really new, and that's looking more and more like Obama.
"He's saying the things I want to hear," Garrett says. "I know he won't carry through all of them, but he'll carry through some of them. And it will be beneficial to our people."

Governor Bill Richardson-Lopez has dropped out of the Democratic contest. That leaves three. A Barack Obama-John Edwards ticket would be virtually unbeatable in the next election. Would John Edwards take the number 2 spot on a Democratic ticket for a second time?
For that matter, a John Edwards-Barack Obama ticket would be almost as strong. However, since Obama is running the strongest campaign, it would be more logical for him to lead the ticket.
That way, if for any reason, Obama could not serve out his full term, then Edwards would become President.
Don't think for a minute that the vice presidency is too trivial a post to contend for, however much a person may claim to spurn it. The average politician would kill for a chance at it. Serving four years in supremely comfortable surroundings while just one heartbeat from the presidency is the ultimate dream job. For one thing, its sheer prominence laid the foundation for five vice presidents to go on to the presidency. And the death of the president, through ill health, an assassin's bullet or resignation put nine others in the Oval Office without even having to run for it. Added together, that's a third of America's presidents. So, who is running for President? And who is running for Vice-President?







___

Torch Offered to New Generation.
Senator Ted Kennedy and JFK's daughter, Caroline, endorse Obama for President of the United States.






A NEW DAY IS DAWNING.

Senator John Kerry endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States on 10 January, saying Mr. Obama “had the greatest potential to lead a transformation, not just a transition.”
Who better than Barack Obama to bring new credibility to America’s role in the world and help restore our moral authority?” Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a rally at the College of Charleston. “Who better than Barack Obama to turn a new page in American politics, so that Democrats, independents and Republicans alike can look to the leadership that unites to find common ground.”
Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who was the party’s presidential nominee in 2004, said he was endorsing Mr. Obama’s candidacy because he believed he was uniquely situated to inspire “millions of Americans to join together and come together in a movement” to demand real change in Washington.
He believes Mr. Obama is a better candidate than John Edwards, Mr. Kerry’s former running mate, who has vowed to keep his own presidential candidacy alive.
“There are other candidates in this race with whom I have worked and whom I respect,” Mr. Kerry said. “Each of them could be president tomorrow. But I believe that more than everyone else, Barack Obama can help our country turn the page and get America moving by uniting and ending the division that America faces. He has a superb talent, as all of you know, to communicate the best of our hopes and aspirations for American and the world.”

It was back in 2004 when Mr. Kerry selected Mr. Obama — then a state senator, vying for a United States Senate seat — to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. The speech elevated the stature of Mr. Obama almost overnight, launched the reprinting of his book, “Dreams From My Father,” and set his political career in overdrive.

In addition to Mr. Kerry on Thursday, Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota announced his endorsement for Mr. Obama.

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, saying he could inspire Americans in the same way her father once did.

"I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them," Caroline Kennedy wrote in an op-ed posted Saturday on the Web site of The New York Times. "But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."

Kennedy, who was four days shy of her 6th birthday when her father was assassinated, wrote that Obama "has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things."

And she appealed to other parents to pick a candidate who she said could invigorate a younger generation that is too often "hopeless, defeated and disengaged."

Kennedy wrote that she wants a president "who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved."

Senator Barack Obama emerged from Super Tuesday’s primaries leading Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by more than 100 delegates, a small but significant advantage that Democrats said would be difficult for Mrs. Clinton to make up in the remaining contests in the presidential nomination battle.

A delegate count by The New York Times, including projections from caucuses where delegates have not yet been chosen, showed Mr. Obama with a 113-delegate lead over Mrs. Clinton: 1,095 to 982.

Delegate counts by other news organizations and by the campaigns showed somewhat different results, reflecting the difficulty of trying to make exact delegate counts at this point in the process. The figures do not include superdelegates.

Mr. Obama’s campaign said that he had a lead of 1,139 to 1,003; by the count of the Clinton campaign organization, Mr. Obama was doing even better: 1,141 to 1,004 for Mrs. Clinton.

There are 1,082 delegates left to be selected.

In Texas Mrs. Clinton should be helped by the Latino vote — which could ultimately be as much as 40 percent of the electorate.
But Mrs. Clinton faces another problem there in the form of that state’s unusual delegation allocation rules. Delegates are allocated to state senatorial districts based on Democratic voter turn-out in the last election. Bruce Buchanan, a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Austin, noted that in the last election, turnout was low in predominantly Hispanic districts and unusually high in urban African-American districts.

That means more delegates will be available in districts that, based on the results so far, could be expected to go heavily for Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton, Dr. Buchanan said, “has got her work cut out for her.”

Riding momentum from big primary victories, Sen. Barack Obama turned to the economy on 12 February to launch attacks against his primary opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, while campaigning in Wisconsin.

Obama, a senator since January 2005, blamed Washington and his rivals for the nation's economic woes.

"We are not standing on the brink of recession due to forces beyond our control," he said in a speech at a General Motors plant in Janesville. "The fallout from the housing crisis that's cost jobs and wiped out savings was not an inevitable part of the business cycle. It was a failure of leadership and imagination in Washington."

Obama said Clinton and McCain were partly to blame for the nation's economic problems as part of a Washington establishment that lacked "leadership and imagination."

"It's a Washington where politicians like John McCain and Hillary Clinton voted for a war in Iraq that should've never been authorized and never been waged - a war that is costing us thousands of precious lives and billions of dollars a week" that could be used on infrastructure, job training and health care, he said.

Obama said Wednesday, 13 February that as president he would spend $210 billion to create jobs in construction and environmental industries, as he tried to win over economically struggling voters.

Obama's investment would be over 10 years as part of two programs. The larger is $150 billion to create 5 million so-called "green collar" jobs to develop more environmentally friendly energy sources.

Sixty-billion dollars would go to a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to rebuild highways, bridges, airports and other public projects. Obama estimated that could generate nearly 2 million jobs, many of them in the construction industry that's been hit by the housing crisis.

Obama explained that the money for his proposals will come from ending the Iraq war, cutting tax breaks for corporations, taxing carbon pollution and raising taxes on high-income earners.

Tears for Fears and Female Peers.



It was a real nail-biter in New Hampshire. The race was close and came down almost to a photo finish. Facing a flood of polls showing her losing badly going into the New Hampshire Primary, Hillary Clinton narrowly upset Barack Obama by two points, that is 39 percent to 37 percent. They each received 9 Delegate votes, while John Edwards received 4.



Women returned solidly to Hillary's side, helping her overcome Barack Obama's advantage among the large independent bloc in New Hampshire. In a gripping moment shown repeatedly on television on Monday night, 7 January, Hillary appeared momentarily overtaken by emotion, her voice quivered, and her eyes misted with tears when a questioner asked how she was enduring the strains of the campaign.
Many will point to Hillary's watery-eyed performance at the Portsmouth rally on Monday as a watershed moment. Down in the polls and facing imminent defeat, the erstwhile anti-Tammy Wynette turned on the spigot and played damsel in distress: "It's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country. I just don't want to see us fall backward, you know?"
The steely voice — infamous for uttering profanities at staffers, state troopers and her Secret Service detail, bellowing at the Bush administration and Rush Limbaugh, and imitating a fiery Southern drawl — turned drippy: "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political; it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it." Insert heartfelt pauses and choke-ups as directed.
So long, feminist hero. Hello, weeping willow. Anyone who believes Hillary spontaneously teared up and got emotional on the campaign trail has been in a coma the last three decades.

Women in New Hampshire did what they did not do in Iowa: they rallied behind her. Women supported her by 47 percent to 34 percent, according to a survey of voters leaving the polls; women voters in Iowa had been evenly divided between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama.



Obama was as strong in New Hampshire as in Iowa among the youngest voters, winning 60 percent of those age 18-24. He emphasizes the connections between people, the networks and the webs of influence. These sorts of links are invisible to some of his rivals, but Obama is a communitarian. He believes you can only make profound political changes if you first change the spirit of the community. In his speeches, he says that if one person stands up, then another will stand up and another and another and you’ll get a nation standing up.
The key word in any Obama speech is “you.” Other politicians talk about what they will do if elected. Obama talks about what you can do if you join together. Like a community organizer on a national scale, he is trying to move people beyond their cynicism, make them believe in themselves, mobilize their common energies.
The central issue in this election is the crisis of leadership. Voters are reacting against partisan gridlock. Obama offers ways to end this gridlock. He wants us to rise above it by rediscovering our commonalities.

New Hampshire's primary is the second high-profile battleground, following Iowa, in the state-by-state process of choosing Republican and Democratic candidates for November's election to succeed President George W. Bush.
The race to replace Bush, whose popularity at home and abroad has plunged due to the war in Iraq, moves into a new stage heading up to February 5 when 22 states hold nominating contests that could decide who will face off in November.
Obama congratulated Clinton on her victory, but added, "I am still fired up and ready to go."



"This moment, in this election, there is something happening in America," Obama said.
Exit polls said Hillary won big among women and older voters, while the young voters who propelled Obama to victory in Iowa did not turn out in big numbers in New Hampshire.
Obama won Iowa last week, with Clinton third behind second-place finisher John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator. Edwards finished third in New Hampshire but promised to fight on.
"Two races down, 48 states to go," Edwards said.
For all the glee in her camp, Hillary still faces big challenges. In Obama, Hillary is facing an opponent who has been lifted on the wind of nationwide anti-Washington climate change. Emboldened by this victory, Hillary will certainly push Obama to see — in the phrase that Mrs. Clinton borrowed from Mario M. Cuomo — if he can match the poetry of his campaign with the prose of what it takes to govern.
Don't let the "Comeback Gal" spin fool you. Despite the unexpectedly close finish in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton's campaign remains in a tailspin. And the Clintons' pre-Granite State primary finger-pointing has left an indelible mark. It's the media's fault. It's sexism's fault. It's the vast right-wing conspiracy's fault.
Oh, and it's all your fault that you laugh out loud when she tries to steal the mantle of "change" from Barack Obama by surrounding herself on stage with moldy political fogies like Madeleine Albright, Wesley Clark and James Carville.

There were long lines at polling places in New Hampshire amid predictions of a record turnout during the most wide open U.S. presidential race in more than 50 years, with no sitting president or vice president seeking the nominations.
The presidential race now begins to branch out quickly to more states, with Michigan voting next Tuesday, 15 January,, Nevada and South Carolina Republicans on 19 January and South Carolina Democrats on 26 January.
South Carolina looms as a potential showdown state in both parties. For Democrats, Obama possibly holds an advantage in a state where more than half of Democratic primary voters are expected to be Black.

Lt London Steverson, NNOA's Judge Advocate General, at NNOA's 1980 National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

Navy and Coast Guard officers stationed in the New England area are reviving The National Naval Officers Association (NNOA), an organization that intends to bring more racial and ethnic minorities into the officer corps of the sea services reports Jennifer Grogan in the 6 December 2008 edition of The Day, a newspaper in New London, Connecticut. The New London area is rich in military history and activity. It is the home of the United States Coast Guard Academy. Just up the Thames River from the Academy is the Groton Naval Submarine Base, the home of the Polaris, the first submarine to circumnavigate the globe underwater.

In 2007, whites accounted for more than 80 percent of active-duty Marine, Navy and Coast Guard officers. Between 5 and 8 percent of the officer corps was Black, and the percentage of Hispanics hovered around 6 points.

The rest of the officer corps comprises smaller percentages of other groups, including Asian, American Indian /Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian / other Pacific Islander.

“We're behind,” said Lt. Mark Braxton, a civil engineering instructor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London. “We don't look like what we should look like.”

The organization they have reactivated is the New England Chapter of the NNOA. It aims to help the Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps recruit, retain and promote officers from diverse races and ethnic backgrounds.

“We need a voice so people know how we feel,” said Braxton, vice president of the chapter. “When things occur, we now have somewhere we can go to organize our thoughts, and we have a voice to address our thoughts.”

The majority of the local chapter's members are Black, but members say they're interested in helping all groups that are underrepresented in the military.

Although public discussion of diversity in the military often focuses on the “don't ask, don't tell” policy, which allows homosexuals to serve if they keep their sexual orientation secret, NNOA does not have an official position on that issue.

“There are a lot of worthwhile and legitimate causes we could get involved in, but because we are a volunteer organization with some limited resources, we have to stay focused on our primary task, which is to enhance diversity in the sea services' officer corps,” said Bernard L. Jackson, a retired Navy captain and national president of NNOA.

A NNOA chapter in Newport disbanded more than a decade ago because too few people were involved.

“When you look at the number of junior officers in that particular area, there is a critical need for a chapter,” Jackson said.

“Before, you didn't have anybody to go to and say, 'Hey, how do I promote my career? How do I stay on track?'” said Lt. Cmdr. Nigel Andre Sealy, the new chapter's president. Sealy serves as maintenance management officer at Regional Support Group Groton at the Naval Submarine Base.

Lt. Cmdr. Darell Singleterry, an instructor in the department of management at the Academy, said that his interaction with NNOA members earlier in his career was one of the reasons he decided to stay in the Coast Guard.

“When you have conversations with senior successful leaders in the organization, you become motivated, you become invigorated to do great things and follow in their footsteps,” said Singleterry, who also helped organize the local chapter.

Recent efforts to re-establish the association locally began when Rear Adm. Cecil D. Haney, commander of Submarine Group Two, asked Lt. Cmdr. Thomasina Yuille to work on the project and suggested partnering with the academy.

“Personally, I was a little surprised we didn't have one up here,” Haney said. “When you look at my goals for leadership, which are similar to my boss's and similar to the Chief of Naval Operations' goals, it is about professional development. I looked at this as a mechanism by which we could have good professional development.”

Rear Adm. J. Scott Burhoe, Coast Guard Academy superintendent, supported the idea.

“We need to have more minority officers and more women in our senior ranks so that those people who are in the organization can look up and see people who look like themselves,” he said.

Sealy said the reactivation would not have been possible without the support from Haney and Burhoe.

“Unless you have that leadership from the top, believing in it, you wouldn't be able to get these things going,” he said.

Yuille, a chaplain at the Naval Submarine School in Groton, presided over the chapter during the initial organizing.

“People feel like they have a place to turn to,” she said. “NNOA builds relationships, networks and just that support that people will have now that they didn't have before. And with that, hopefully, we'll see an increase in retention.”

The chapter's members have contacted local schools, including New London High, Norwich Free Academy and Three Rivers Community College, to speak with students about the military, and they are looking for professional training opportunities and volunteer projects to work on.

The NNOA's national association gave the chapter $1,000 to offer scholarships, and the members hope to expand the scholarship program in the future. They meet once a month, with committees meeting more frequently.

Membership is open to active duty, reserve and retired officers, cadets at the academy and interested civilians — of any race or ethnic background.

“We let everyone know about organization, and a lot of minority officers are interested and see the benefit of it,” said Sealy, the chapter president, adding that white officers, too, could benefit from membership.

“This is a strategic imperative because not everyone is going to look like the leadership of the past,” Sealy said. “You can't. The numbers aren't there anymore.”

“My desire is to one day not need an organization like NNOA,” Jackson, the national president, said, “but right now, there is a need.”

Judge London Steverson
London Eugene Livingston Steverson (born March 13, 1947) was one of the first two African Americans to graduate from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1968. Later, as chief of the newly formed Minority Recruiting Section of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), he was charged with desegregating the Coast Guard Academy by recruiting minority candidates. He retired from the Coast Guard in 1988 and in 1990 was appointed to the bench as a Federal Administrative Law Judge with the Office of Hearings and Appeals, Social Security Administration.

Early Life and Education
Steverson was born and raised in Millington, Tennessee, the oldest of three children of Jerome and Ruby Steverson. At the age of 5 he was enrolled in the E. A. Harrold elementary school in a segregated school system. He later attended the all black Woodstock High School in Memphis, Tennessee, graduating valedictorian.
A Presidential Executive Order issued by President Truman had desegregated the armed forces in 1948,[1] but the service academies were lagging in officer recruiting. President Kennedy specifically challenged the United States Coast Guard Academy to tender appointments to Black high school students. London Steverson was one of the Black student to be offered such an appointment, and when he accepted the opportunity to be part of the class of 1968, he became the second African American to enter the previously all-white military academy. On June 4, 1968 Steverson graduated from the Coast Guard Academy with a BS degree in Engineering and a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 1974, while still a member of the Coast Guard, Steverson entered The National Law Center of The George Washington University and graduated in 1977 with a Juris Doctor of Laws Degree.

USCG Assignments.
Steverson's first duty assignment out of the Academy was in Antarctic research logistical support. In July 1968 he reported aboard the Coast Guard Cutter (CGC) Glacier [2] (WAGB-4), an icebreaker operating under the control of the U.S. Navy, and served as a deck watch officer and head of the Marine Science Department. He traveled to Antarctica during two patrols from July 1968 to August 1969, supporting the research operations of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Research Project in and around McMurdo Station. During the 1969 patrol the CGC Glacier responded to an international distress call from the Argentine icebreaker General SanMartin, which they freed.
He received another military assignment from 1970 to 1972 in Juneau, Alaska as a Search and Rescue Officer. Before being certified as an Operations Duty Officer, it was necessary to become thoroughly familiar with the geography and topography of the Alaskan remote sites. Along with his office mate, Ltjg Herbert Claiborne "Bertie" Pell, the son of Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, Steverson was sent on a familiarization tour of Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force bases. The bases visited were Base Kodiak, Base Adak Island, and Attu Island, in the Aleutian Islands.[3]
Steverson was the Duty Officer on September 4, 1971 when an emergency call was received that an Alaska Airlines Boeing 727 airline passenger plane was overdue at Juneau airport. This was a Saturday and the weather was foggy with drizzling rain. Visibility was less than one-quarter mile. The 727 was en route to Seattle, Washington from Anchorage, Alaska with a scheduled stop in Juneau. There were 109 people on board and there were no survivors. Steverson received the initial alert message and began the coordination of the search and rescue effort. In a matter of hours the wreckage from the plane, with no survivors, was located on the side of a mountain about five miles from the airport. For several weeks the body parts were collected and reassembled in a staging area in the National Guard Armory only a few blocks from the Search and Rescue Center where Steverson first received the distress broadcast.[4]. Later a full investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the cause of the accident was equipment failure.[5]
Another noteworthy item is Steverson's involvement as an Operations Officer during the seizure of two Russian fishing vessels, the Kolevan and the Lamut for violating an international agreement prohibiting foreign vessels from fishing in United States territorial waters. The initial attempts at seizing the Russian vessels almost precipitated an international incident when the Russian vessels refused to proceed to a U. S. port, and instead sailed toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. Russian MIG fighter planes were scrambled, as well as American fighter planes from Elmendorf Air Force Base before the Russian vessels changed course and steamed back

Read More

OBAMA SWEEPS IOWA!!
Sen. Barack Obama, bidding to be the first Black president in American history, won the Iowa caucuses Thursday night, 3 December, pushing Sen. Hillary Clinton back to third place in the opening test of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Obama, 46, told a raucous victory rally his triumph showed that in "big cities and small towns, you came together to say, 'We are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come.'"
Final Democratic returns showed the first-term lawmaker gaining 38 percent support. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina gained second, barely edging out Clinton, the former first lady.

Barack Obama's victory in the overwhelmingly white state of Iowa could answer the question of whether America is ready to elect a Black president. Voters also seemed to reject the criticism that the first-term senator from Illinois lacked experience, wooed instead by his message of change.

He said: "Hope is the bedrock of this nation, the belief that our destiny will not be written for us but by us; by all these men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have the courage to remake the world as it should be. That is what we started in Iowa and that is the message we can now carry to New Hampshire and beyond."
Together ordinary people can do extraordinary things because we are not a collection of red states or blue states. We are the United States of America and in this moment and this election we are ready to believe again. Thank you Iowa," said Senator Barack Obama, (D) Illinois.

Polls of people entering the caucuses showed his words also resonated with many independent voters.

Obama's win gives us all hope. It signifies the kind of country we imagine ourselves being: optimistic, forward-looking and unafraid to take risks.




Obama's stirring victory in Iowa -- down home, folksy, farm-fed, Midwestern, and 92 percent white Iowa -- says a lot about America, and also about the current mindset of the American voter.
This is the kind of country we've always imagined ourselves being -- even if in the last seven years we fell horribly short: a young country, an optimistic country, a forward-looking country, a country not afraid to take risks or to dream big.
All of which added up to a bad night for Hillary Clinton, who has seen her position as Democratic front-runner falter.
Bill Clinton has privately told friends that if Hillary didn't win, it would be because of the two weeks that followed her shaky performance in the Philadelphia debate.
But it wasn't those two weeks. Indeed, if we were to pinpoint one decisive moment, it would be Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose, arrogant and entitled, dismissive and fear-mongering. And then Bill Clinton giving us a refresher course in '90s-style truth-twisting and obfuscation -- making stuff about always having been against the war, and about Hillary having always been for every good decision during his presidency and against every bad one, from Ireland to Sarajevo to Rwanda.
So voters in Iowa remembered the past and decided that they didn't want to go back. They wanted to move ahead. Even if that meant rolling the dice.
"I think this is great, this is wonderful historic milestone. We are going to be electing an African-American in this country and it's also what's important is that keep in mind that this is a state that is 95-percent white, three-percent Black," said Obama supporter Paul Hogarth.
"I think the Bushes and the Clintons the day and the era is over. It's a time to move on and to move with a different movement and stop fighting the old fights, and move over to a new generation and just a different way of doing things," said Obama supporter Sam Suleman.
"I expect us to win New Hampshire. We are going to work very hard as if we are behind. That's the idea," said Obama supporter Zennie Abraham.
Across town it was quite a different scenario for supporters of Hillary Clinton. Clinton finished third, a huge setback for the senator who just weeks ago, was considered the favorite in the Democratic nomination.
For Clinton and her supporters, it's now time to re-group and focus in New Hampshire.


In Milford, N.H., Barack Obama drew thunderous applause from raucous New Hampshire Democratic Party activists Friday night:, 4 January 2008, when he said that he was prepared to build a new majority that will put Democrats in power.
Delivered a day after the Iowa caucuses that gave him a victory and Hillary Clinton a stunning third-place finish, he received a boisterous receptions at the state party's annual fundraising dinner.
Obama issued a call for a broader political base founded on progressive values.
"If you know who you are, if you know what you believe in, if you know what you are fighting for, then you can afford to listen to folks who don't agree with you, you can afford to reach across the aisle every once in a while," Obama said. "It won't hurt you. You won't be compromised and you will be able to form the majorities that will defeat the special interests and ... win elections."
Clinton, Obama, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Rep. Dennis Kucinich all made their presidential pitches to the 3,000 hardy partisans assembled Friday night for the New Hampshire Democratic Party's fundraising dinner, the largest in its history.
After a day of making his case to New Hampshire voters, including the state's unpredictable independents, he offered some sharper partisan rhetoric for the appreciative crowd.
Former Sen. John Edwards, who edged Clinton for second place in Iowa, skipped the dinner in favor of campaigning at a town hall meeting in Portsmouth. But his wife, Elizabeth, attended and made herself available to reporters during the event's preliminary speeches.
President Bush was a popular target for the Democrats.
"There are many reasons history will judge George W. Bush harshly," Clinton said at one point. "But among the top two is how he has used fear to divide us. The other is because we have been infected by a sense of fatalism."
Clinton received a rousing cheer at the end of her 18-minute address, but Obama, the last speaker of the night, had the audience on its feet, waving placards during an earsplitting ovation.
Clinton conceded Obama's call for bipartisanship but stressed her allegiance to the party.
"We've got to bring people together across the divide that too often separates us," she said. "But we also have to stand for Democratic principles. I am proud to be a Democrat."
Obama, without mentioning her name, rejected Clinton's argument that she is better prepared for the presidency than he is and signaled that he is prepared for the critique.
"Lately people have been saying, 'Well, Obama, he may talk good, he may have good ideas,'" he said. "But they will say, 'Obama hasn't been in Washington long enough, he needs to be seasoned and stewed and we need to boil all the hope out of him. You know, that argument did not work in Iowa and it's not going to work in New Hampshire."
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, a preacher turned politician, handily defeated Romney despite being outspent by millions of dollars and deciding in the campaign's final days to scrap television commercials that would have assailed the former Massachusetts governor.
He stressed his religion to the extent of airing a commercial that described himself as a "Christian leader" in his race against a man seeking to become the first Mormon president.
Nearly complete returns showed Huckabee with 34 percent support, compared with 25 percent for Romney. Former Sen. Fred Thompson and Sen. John McCain battled for third place, while Texas Rep. Ron Paul wound up fifth and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sixth.
In his victory speech, Huckabee said the result proved that "people are more important than the purse."
"A new day is needed in American politics, just like a new day is needed in American government," the former Arkansas governor told cheering supporters. "It starts here, but it doesn't end here."
Romney sought to frame his defeat as something less than that, saying he had trailed Huckabee by more than 20 points in the polls a few weeks ago. "I've been pleased that I've been able to make up ground, and I intend to keep making up ground, not just here but across the country," he said.
The words were brave, but already his strategy of bankrolling a methodical campaign in hopes of winning the first two states was in tatters — and a rejuvenated McCain was tied with him in the polls in next-up New Hampshire.
Late Thursday, McCain congratulated Huckabee on his victory.
"I look forward to seeing him on the campaign trail, and I know that he'll continue his positive campaign," McCain said at a campaign event in Manchester, N.H.
With his victory tonight, Barack Obama is now the strong favorite to be the Democratic nominee for president. The only one who can stop Obama from making history is Obama.
It's hard to believe a few thousand votes in Iowa can have so shaken the political landscape, but the front-loading of the primary process—originally meant to be a way to settle on Hillary Clinton early so she could concentrate on defeating the GOP in November—has backfired badly for the Democratic Party establishment.
Unless he makes a terrible mistake in this weekend's WMUR debate in New Hampshire, Obama will be the strong favorite to win in the Granite State. That leaves 18 days until the South Carolina primary, but even that time will probably not be enough for Clinton to fight her way back. With half of South Carolina's Democrats being African-American, her chances won't be good.
Many Blacks have been waiting to see if Obama was for real. Now that white Iowa has voted for him, they will likely move strongly toward him. That was the pattern among Black voters when Obama ran for the Senate in Illinois.
Sources within John Edwards's campaign tell me that if Edwards drops out (unlikely before New Hampshire), he will throw his support to Obama. Should the Illinois senator win New Hampshire and South Carolina, it will be next to impossible to prevent him from becoming the nominee on Feb. 5, Super Tuesday.
The only way he gives Edwards or Clinton a second wind is to mess up. The press will get more intense, increasing the likelihood of a crippling mistake. But so far, Obama has suffered no more than the normal number of relatively minor gaffes. One or two flat debate performances won't be enough to sink him. It will take the kind of big gaffe that only rarely transforms campaigns.



Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States. Get used to it. That’s what tonight’s result probably means. People will point to national polls and say that Hillary Clinton is still the front runner but they’ll be wrong. The Democratic race is now Obama’s to lose. And would anyone bet on a Republican – even John McCain or Fred Thompson or even Ron Paul - beating him next November? I think not. Change is in the air. Change is coming. America is alive again. GOD BLESS AMERICA!