More Obama Momentum: Cash and Colin

by: Matt Stoller

Sun Oct 19, 2008 at 13:34


Obama took in $150M in September and got Colin Powell's endorsement.  Powell's an extremely problematic figure but he's going to put the Village gasbags in orbit.

Discuss.

Matt Stoller :: More Obama Momentum: Cash and Colin

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More Obama Momentum: Cash and Colin | 19 comments
I'll say it again .. (4.00 / 8)
the Powell endorsement is not about us .. it is about Independents .. the few sane Republicans .. and Versailles(as Matt points out) .. those three groups still hold him in high esteem .. and it does one thing as a result .. it basically puts the boot on the neck of McCain's campaign
Exactly (4.00 / 3)
This endorsement doesn't matter for well-informed, intelligent, and moral voters, because those voters are already voting for Obama.

But for low-information voters, the kind who are still undecided, it might have some play. Let's hope, anyway.

[ Parent ]
Bingo (4.00 / 2)
Powell's problematic for some progressives, but with an approval rating of 80%, he's not that problematic for the general electorate.
[ Parent ]
I think his best moment was when he talked about taxes. (4.00 / 8)
Almost makes me yearn for the Gerry Ford era of republicans. When even some republicans acknowledged that taxes are necessary if we don't want to live in a society with 50% poverty rates and travel times of 18 months to get across the country.  
I was genuinely shocked when he said that taxes are necessary (4.00 / 2)
'Liberal' Democrats routinely cower from that position. Here's an icon of conservatism saying it. (Shorter Rush Limbaugh: He's our token negro, so it doesn't count.)
[ Parent ]
the amount the obama (4.00 / 3)
campaign took in during sept gives me more optimism then even the polls, so i went ahead and donated for the fourth time today, dig deep america, the dark days of conservative control are almost over and the sun is beginning to shine again in america, and i can't wait.
How much is enough? (0.00 / 0)
You donated four times in one day?  

I don't want candidates buying elections by outspending other candidates three to one.  It doesn't matter who.  It doesn't matter how.

We need a level playing field for all candidates.  

[ Parent ]
We do (0.00 / 0)
But if we want to get enough Republicans on-side to make that change, then we need to consistently outspend them.

Abuse the rules now, so they'll let us fix them later.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
Couldn't agree more.. (0.00 / 0)
..though I would love to see Obama give a big chunk of this to the DCCC and DSCC in exchange for them refusing to take anymore PAC money for at least 4 years.

There's clearly enough to go around, what's a $15 million loan compared to this?  

Free the iPhone

[ Parent ]
Given his part in recent history, (4.00 / 6)
I hope Powell has no place in the Obama administration. I think history will judge Powell as one who enabled Bush to push America towards a war that derailed our economy and set us back decades on the global relations front.

But Powell does get some credit, in my book, for making this argument today on MTP:

I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian.  He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is?  Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?  Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine.  It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave.  And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone.  And it gave his awards--Purple Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death.  He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith.  And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey.  He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way.  And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know.  But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

"Patriotic American" and "Muslim" are not mutually exclusive. This is a very important point, I think someone had a similar line back in the primary (remind me who it was), but to hear it from a Republican at this moment in time is very important. Let's hope the country can continue to discuss it, because as long as we don't talk about it, there will be more Michelle Bachmann, Virgil Goode and Karl Rove type politics, more hatred on right-wing radio, more imagined culture crusades, more politics of resentment that hold the country back.

One could criticize Powell for taking care to separate McCain from the rest of the crowd but for me, that doesn't really matter in the long run if McCain loses. Despite his participation in the failures of Bush, I think on some level, Powell shares with progressives a view of the future where different groups come together to work for the country, and he articulated that today.  

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
-Lawrence Summers

Jinx (0.00 / 0)
I just made the same point, though you did it better.
[ Parent ]
If Powell included McCain in the whole .. (0.00 / 0)
rest of the Republicans mess .. it's because it would have diluted his message .. he said what he needed to do in his statesman way .. while still getting it across with a lot of unmistakable force
[ Parent ]
That's a hit (0.00 / 0)
Anti-Muslim feeling should not be legitimate. If you don't like Muslims or Arabs, it's because you're racist. It shouldn't be a concern that someone is Muslim, it should be a concern that you think it's a concern.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog
[ Parent ]
And by the way, Matt (4.00 / 5)
I have a lot of problems with Powell too, but I have to give him props for directly taking on the Islamophobic bigotry that's swept the nation. He could have just avoided the question, but he stepped up and flat-out said look, Muslim Americans are patriots too. And good for him, I say.
Yes. (0.00 / 0)
That was the best moment of the interview.  To my knowledge no one else has made this comment in the mainstream media.  I wish Obama would have, but I understand why he didn't.  This was extraordinarily helpful.  He said what needed to be said -     of course Obama isn't a Muslim, but even if he was - what's wrong with that?  A very good moment.

 

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

[ Parent ]
Campbell Brown of CNN recently made the same point (0.00 / 0)
I didn't see it, but she got some credit for it on a few blogs.  Of course, Powell saying it has far greater significance in terms of how many people it might reach.

It was always going to be a tough point for Obama to push back on, if only because it might re-inforce some of the idiocy.  "See, he's defending Muslims, he must be ONE OF THEM ZOMG!1!!!"

[ Parent ]
Clearly... (0.00 / 0)
Clearly, Colin Powell lacks small town American values and is no longer part of Real America.  

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra
[ Parent ]
Powell Endorsement (0.00 / 0)
It is entirely possible to look beyond the politics of the past and view this endorsement strictly from a strategic perspective. The story of today is the Powell endorsement. Tomorrow, the Powell endorsement will also be the story on the 24hour news shows. That's two days at least that the endorsement will dominate the news, two days that the McCain campaign will be asked to discuss the endorsement when they desperately want to talk about other things. With the election only a handful of days away, this is the crunch-time when dominating the news cycle actually matters, particularly when a campaign is being out-spent throughout the media market and part of it's strategy is relying on the free media to get the message out.

Yes, there are legitimate issues of Powell's past that should be discussed.  However, debating such issues now wont solve anything.  So for now, just enjoy the pure panic that this endorsement has caused within the republican ranks and the McCain campaign.  Appreciate the many media narratives that this one story will generate about the many problems of McCain and Palin and their campaign.  Even Drudge is in full panic mode with no less than seven seperate stories about the Powell endorsement.  This is a tremendous gift for the Obama campaign.

Phone banking today (0.00 / 0)
I didn't talk to any, but some other phone bankers said that a few undecideds they talked to really did take to the news of this endorsement, and for some, it sealed the deal. So, in Florida at least, a Colin Powell endorsement is worth some votes.

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!
More Obama Momentum: Cash and Colin | 19 comments
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