I’m heading off to Pakistan with Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel this weekend to observe their long awaited elections and make it very clear that the United States and the world are watching what happens there – but before I leave, I wanted to report back to you a few thoughts on the other election the world is watching, right here at home.
No denying that this election has been personally exciting – in my travels for Barack I’ve seen general election sized crowds (and I know something about what those look like!) coming out because so many people – and so many new people – are looking for something different.
But momentum’s a funny thing; you have it until, well, until you don’t have it. So, you bet things are going well, you bet there’s a head of steam – but Barack Obama also needs a big push and he needs it now: the next 3 weeks can be decisive in this campaign if you make it so. (Wisconsin is close, and as yesterday’s public polls underscore, he’s the underdog in Ohio and Texas.) So today, I'm asking for your help.
As soon as I’m back, I’ll keep doing what I can do, keep traveling and campaigning, carry the message on TV and the radio along with Ted Kennedy and a whole bunch of folks who are burning up the phones for this campaign, and yesterday I emailed the johnkerry.com community and asked for their help by contributing to Barack Obama’s campaign.
But I also wanted to come here and ask the help of this community at Daily Kos. I know many of you have already given, but this is a critical time, as Barack is taking incoming fire not just on the Democratic side, but from John McCain as well, who thinks the surest way to fix his conservative base problems is by trying to galvanize the right-wing noise machine to ramp up their attacks on Barack.
So, if you can, contribute today.
These last years, I’ve enjoyed my time here on Daily Kos -- frankly I wish I’d come here even sooner -- but you know as well as I do that we’ve spent an enormous amount of our collective energy trying to stop bad things from happening, and on too many of those fights we haven’t gotten our way. Our ANWR filibuster started here, and we won. But our Alito filibuster started here, and died on the floor of the Senate. I voted against the FISA bill, and had Chris Dodd’s back on that cloture vote, but we haven’t yet prevailed in making Washington acknowledge you can hunt and kill terrorists without shredding the Constitution.
Too much progress on too many big issues remains blocked right now, with a conservative roadblock thrown up at every turn. To really change it – to have the right Supreme Court nominees, to get people together on big issues like FISA and Iraq, we need not just a new President, but the right President, and that’s Barack Obama – who needs to take office with more progressive legislators in Congress who will have his back, and together we can empower citizens to take control of their own democracy.
I haven’t been this optimistic we can get real change for quite a while. There’s a storm of activism gathering out there. Barack Obama is leading it, but it’s made up of all of us – Barack, me, you, all Americans who are working for this change.
But, again, we all need to do what we can. So, contribute today, if you can..
And if you can't give money, give time. And also talk to your friends, neighbors, and family members.
I’ve rarely asked this community for money for anything, but today, I am in the asking business because I care a hell of a lot about a candidate who I want to help stay in the hope business and deliver. So please do contribute to Barack’s campaign.
Thank you for all you’ve done. We’re getting closer.
update: A few of you have asked – and I want to underscore - that our trip to Pakistan isn’t legally permitted to be a “monitoring” exercise - it’s an observation group – but I’ve done these for years going back to Marcos/Phillipines – and I do believe having senior American presence there on the ground talking to people in real time matters; it sends a signal that we’re serious enough to fly across the globe to see for ourselves whether the elections are – as promised - free, fair, and transparent - I think having senior members of the Foreign Relations Committee on the ground how seriously we take these elections.
Also, a bit of a flashback as Pakistan is on my mind: Remember the famous 2000 election interview of Governor Bush in Boston by our local tv political reporter Andy Hiller? A certain Governor didn’t remember the new head of Pakistan who had taken power in a military coup – tell me, seriously, how many people now wish Al Gore had been sworn in as President to deal with world crises like Pakistan?
