Are U.S. taxpayers getting stiffed? Pfizer, Viagra's daddy, is using money from taxpayer-bailed-out banks to help buy major pharmaceutical competitor Wyeth in a $68 billion deal. That won't help taxpayers or consumers. Nor is it designed to. It will harm the companies' workers, 20,000 of whom will likely be laid off. It's even likely to hurt small bio-tech companies, drying up potential sources of capital and leaving fewer potential major investors or purchasers.

The deal may be good for Pfizer, helping the company recover from a $2.3 billion legal settlement over misleading marketing on the pain reliever Bextra, and helping them amplify the clout of the $3 million they recently spent lobbying against the right to import cheaper drugs from Canada. But it won't help the rest of us.

So why are banks bailed out with taxpayer dollars furnishing the $22.5 billion of debt financing for this deal? On NPR, a financial analyst crowed about how wonderful it was that major banks were lending this kind of money in the current economy. But it troubles me that among the deal's prime financial backers--Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan/Chase--all but the British-owned Barclays received money from the Congressional bailout. So the funds they lent to this merger won't be available to help smaller (or larger) companies keep their doors open producing and selling products--ideally ones that actually benefit society--and not just to consolidate control over their industry. This seems one more case of public subsidies for private gain.

I'm no economist. For all I know, maybe in some Henry Paulson-Alan Greenspan dream world this will end up boosting America's physical and fiscal health. Perhaps the new combined entity will come up with some miracle drug that neither company would have created on their own. But mostly, it seems just one more example of how a bailout without strong government control, or even oversight, just feeds the same greed-driven abuses that have gotten us into our current predicament. It's going to take more than Viagra to strengthen our economy once more.



Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

Like most Americans, I'm guarding my dollars, but when my furnace died during Seattle's coldest winter in decades, I needed to replace it. And when I did, with a high-efficiency Trane model made in Trenton New Jersey, the costs and gains underscored key lessons about what we need to do to craft a stimulus package that actually builds for America's future. My new furnace saves energy and fights climate change. It promotes American jobs, and pays back its costs in a reasonable time frame. It points toward how to genuinely renew America's economy instead of encouraging the same consumption for consumption's sake that has helped create our current problems.

Let's look at what my $5,000 purchased. It supported Trane's factory workers in New Jersey and in their main plant in Tyler, Texas, supported local Seattle installers, and supported beleaguered New Jersey, Texas, and Washington state and city governments through the sales tax I paid and the taxes paid by the companies involved. In my personal economy, it meant I'll save more than a third of my yearly gas bill and a commensurate amount of my CO2 emissions. My old furnace was a thirteen-year-old 70% efficient model that was down to barely 60% because single-cycle furnaces lose 1% a year as their burners corrode and heat exchangers get less efficient. The new one is 97% efficient and will maintain far more efficiency because its variable speed motor is much easier on its components. I live in a relatively small and well-insulated house in a generally temperate climate, and I keep my thermostat low, but I've still been spending $850 a year on gas heat (solar panels take care of most of my hot water), and if I add in savings on my electric bill from the furnace's extra-efficient fan, I'll save roughly $340 a year at current gas prices, and more as fossil fuels of all kinds become scarcer. If natural gas costs continue to increase at their recent rate, 61% in the past five years, my investment will pay back in roughly nine years--a far better and safer return than I could get from any bank account or roller-coastering stock market investment. If I lived in a colder climate or had a larger or less-insulated house, the furnace would pay off sooner still. I'll also prevent the release of roughly three tons of CO2 every year.

So how do we make similar choices affordable for everyone, whether or not they have the savings to do this on their own? Imagine if the pending stimulus package helped people make such investments nationwide, combining direct incentives with low or no-interest loans, along the lines of those long advocated by Al Gore. Imagine if it prioritized energy efficiency and investment in renewables, particularly those that are American-made.

I'm not saying high-efficiency furnaces solve all our economic or environmental challenges. Plugging building leaks, adding insulation and switching light bulbs give the maximum energy efficiency for the least expenditure of dollars. We need solutions that move us toward eliminating fossil fuel use altogether, like solar thermal, industrial-scale wind, advanced geothermal, ultra-efficient green buildings, and smart electrical grids. The 300,000-person Swedish city of Malmo already gets 40 percent of its residential heat (and 60 percent of its electricity) from a municipal incinerator plant and is steadily extending its district heating to the suburbs. We could do the same. But adding a high-efficiency furnace buys time--like scrapping a Hummer to drive a Ford Focus. It takes us part of the way--and if the furnaces are American-made, does so while keeping money in our domestic economy. If we could replace every furnace older than 10 years with a high-efficiency model, and mandate the same in new construction, we'd come out far ahead.

Every industry is hurting these days, and they all have their hands out. But if we spend seven hundred billion or a trillion dollars to jumpstart the economy without simultaneously addressing root problems like fossil fuel dependence, we may not have the resources to do so later on--or when we do, they'll require far more sacrifice. My furnace upgrade was from necessity, but it symbolizes a fundamental choice about the direction of America's economy, and therefore about the stimulus package aimed at reviving it.

We can continue to support consumption for its own sake, and that's what we've been doing. But although $5,000 granite countertops look swell, they don't solve global warming, heal our trade deficits, or move us toward a more sustainable society. Nor do endless truckloads of Chinese Wal-Mart goods for those at the bottom or the $3,000 suits, $100,000 necklaces, and fifteen-million-dollar mega-mansions for those at the top whose choices have steered us into our present crisis. At some point, we need to shift incentives and priorities. We probably need fewer people working at mall stores, and more manufacturing furnaces or wind turbines and retrofitting houses. Even if this means we won't be able to buy as many cool toys as some Americans did during the boom, we'd actually be investing in the future instead of cannibalizing it. If we make enough of these investments we might even look back on this moment as a national turning point--much as we do now to the wise choices made during a comparable economic challenge, from which we emerged with a far stronger and more equitable economy than ever before.



Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

On election day four years ago, I was canvassing in home state of Washington, alternately knocking on doors for gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire and breaking to call Ohio and Florida. After three recounts, Gregoire won by 129 votes. I had no idea my state election was so close, but I did get three people who wouldn't have otherwise voted--one forgot it was election day, one needed a ride to the polls, and a third didn't know how to turn in her absentee ballot. If you multiply my efforts by those of thousands of other volunteers, we clearly helped make the difference.

The same happened in 2006. During the election's final weeks, I spent about 30 hours calling through MoveOn's Call for Change program, contacting voters in Virginia, Missouri, Montana, and other states with key Senate and Congressional races. Grabbing spare moments where I could, I dialed my way across the country, convincing maybe 20 people who wouldn't have otherwise to back the Democratic challengers. Some initially resisted saying, "They're all the same. They're all corrupt." Or "My vote won't matter so why bother." But I convinced them to vote, and added a few with election-day reminders. Later I read that MoveOn had 120,000 volunteers. If each had half the impact of my efforts, that meant over a million votes, in a season when US Senate seats swung on margins as close as Montana's 3,500 votes, Virginia's 9,000, Rhode Island's 29,000, or Missouri's 48,000. Our common efforts again tipped the balance.

It's easy to think of our individual election volunteering as insignificant. But when enough of us act even in small ways, we can have a powerful impact. Studies have found that if you talk to a dozen people by going door-to-door, you'll likely add at least one new voter for your candidate, a ratio that tends to hold true from local to federal elections, so long as you're working in reasonably receptive neighborhoods. Phone outreach can have a similar impact, though you need to talk with more people for a comparable result. Imagine what a few hundred more volunteers could have done to shift Florida's 537-vote official margin in 2,000, even with all the Republican machinations.

Individual actions can be multiplied on both sides. In 2004 a friend was overseeing a cluster of Florida precincts for John Kerry. He'd exceeded his target for turnout, and was feeling guardedly hopeful. Then a couple hundred people showed up en masse, many holding Bibles. They'd been mobilized by Los Angeles and Omaha phone banks, calling fundamentalist congregations. Those who called had every right to do so, and their efforts, alas, helped reelect George Bush.

So why don't more of us participate, or participate more? Between now and the election, far too many of us will spend plenty of time reading political articles, blogs and polls, obsessing on the latest twists and turns in the headlines, and rooting for our candidate as if for a favorite sports team--while doing relatively little to change the outcome. We can do more than be passive spectators.

Many of us live in states where the presidential race is largely settled, although the popular vote mandate will matter in terms of political leverage, there are numerous close Senate, Congress and governor's races, not to mention important state ballot initiatives. Even if you don't live in Virginia or Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina or Pennsylvania, you can go to the campaign websites and find lists of people to call in key swing states, scripts through which to call them, and step-by-step explanations to walk you through the process. You really can do it from the comfort of your home or apartment--or as part of a group phone bank, if the support makes it easier. Getting involved is more challenging in some states than others, but still an opportunity to affect the long arc of history at a potential key turning point.

Even in the ground-zero battlegrounds, I've met people who passionately follow the contest, yet hold back from actively participating. When I was in Cleveland last week, a woman raised her hand and said "I've been walking neighborhoods for Obama, but my friends don't want to join me, even though they care just as much about the election. They say they don't like rejection."

I asked if anyone in the audience enjoyed rejection. Surprisingly, no one did. But the woman who had canvassed said the time she spent was actually pretty decent. She got some butterflies at first--it's always hard approaching strangers. But once she got into the swing, she enjoyed it. She even had some thoughtful conversations, once she left the necessary training wheels of the script.

Many of us also hesitate due to a perfect standard where we feel we need to be totally eloquent or our efforts will be worthless. My retired neighbor considered calling for Obama, then worried that he wasn't as articulate and persuasive as he used to be, so decided not to. But our efforts don't have to be perfect, they just have to be heartfelt, and we have to keep at them.

With Obama opening up a steadily increasing lead, it's easy for those of us to support him to get complacent. But this is a volatile electorate--a little over a month ago, McCain led with his Sarah Palin bounce. So while the polls are encouraging, given economic meltdown, attack ads, racial issues, and potential voter intimidation and suppression, we'd be wise to view this as an election where our actions really could determine the outcome.

Most of us reading this essay will vote. And maybe most of our friends will as well. But in a politically divided nation, victory may well go to the side that turns out the greatest numbers of more marginal supporters, including those who are newly registered and uncertain about the process, or who doubt their vote will matter. Particularly when reaching out to those who haven't traditionally voted, getting people to the polls isn't something that can be done by just running more ads. We have to make the phone calls, knock on the doors, and remind people as many times as necessary of the differences between the candidates and the impact they could make with their vote. This election may well be won with presence and persistence. It might just be in our hands.


Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly, email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

When Sarah Palin joked about herself and her fellow hockey moms as pit bulls with lipstick, she may have revealed more than she intended. She made it sound a compliment—portraying herself and her peers as ordinary mothers who look good but are tough, tenacious, and defend their family at any cost. But do we really want a potential President whose prime trait is an eagerness to bite your throat at any pretext? We already have that: Dick Cheney.

There’s a reason why pit bulls have been banned for their lethal belligerence from England, Norway and France, to Miami and Springfield Missouri. They attack indiscriminately, whether other dogs or children or an elderly Seattle-area woman two of them nearly killed this past week. There’s a reason you don’t say, “Great, a pit bull just moved in. How nice for our neighborhood.” Even people who want some protection usually pick other breeds, like German Shepherds, because they know pit bulls might turn on them.

Now some of us admire their tenacity, and that’s a virtue, but other dogs are also tenacious—you can pick them up by the sock or rag they’re playing with. But they aren’t loose cannons that just might maul your neighbor’s five-year-old. You don’t want pit bulls running your block, much less the United States. Pit bull presidencies don’t work for issues like terrorism, global warming, our declining economy. You can’t solve them by simply ripping your enemy’s leg off.

Pit bulls have their uses, as junkyard dogs, but most of us reject them for our home. We’ve seen all too much what a “my way or we’ll destroy you” approach has done to our country in the past eight years. The single-mindedness of a pit ball can be useful, but it can also be disastrous. The Cheney crew had this in their obsession with attacking Iraq, even as they were dismissing Clinton-era reports of the threats from Bin Laden. If they hadn’t been so focused on attacking their enemies, we might never have embarked on the disastrous Iraq war.

Yet Sarah Palin seems to relish the pit bull role, with an attack dog’s taste for blood. Her high school classmates called her Sarah Barracuda. She won her first race as mayorby bringing in the state Republican Party to a nonpartisan contest and focusing on guns, abortion and how she was a true Christian and the incumbent wasn’t in a race that normally focused on roads and sewers. She fired the Wassila librarian who resisted her suggestion that some books might have to be banned and the police chiefwho didn’t support her candidacy. She fired the head of the Alaska state patrol who wouldn’t fire her ex-brother-in-law. She sat laughing while a shock jock interviewer mocked one of her political opponents (a cancer survivor and fellow Republican) for her weight, and called the woman a “bitch” and a “cancer.” And then there’s the convention speech that catapulted her to superstardom. Not only did it repeatedly distort the truth, it embodied every character assassination scenario from the past 30 years—taking the polarizing politics of Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, George Wallace, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, and dressing it up, with lipstick, in Palin’s charismatic package. She even attacked the very idea of citizens working for change when she mocked community organizers.

If we read the polls, Palin’s pit bull approach may well be working. Pit bull politicians can be great campaigners—especially when their prime goal is to bloody their targets whatever the cost to truth, U.S. politics and ultimately, to our country. But do we really want a pit bull as vice president?

We should already know, because we’ve had one for the past eight years. Palin is younger, more attractive, and a better shot. But she has a similar ruthlessness, bellicosity, and eagerness to destroy anyone who gets in her way. She’s similarly secretive and controlling beneath the disarming charm. Despite her image as the outsider reformer, she has her own ties to pay-to-play politics from serving as one of three directors for the political action committee (PAC) of corrupt Alaska Senator Ted Stephens, to fighting for the Bridge to Nowhere before it became politically untenable, to hiring a lobbyist (when Mayor of Wassila) who not only was a former Stephens Chief of Staff but also worked for now-convicted crooked Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. And she’s just as beholden to a hard political right that denies reality: from global warming to seeking to ban abortions for rape or incest victims.

Not every Republican embodies the pit bull ethic—I’ll be voting for a Republican Secretary of State who’s meticulously fair and has played by the rules even when he’s taken heat from his own party.

Likewise, many once respected John McCain across party lines for what we thought was a departure from the Karl Rove, Lee Atwater politics of personal destruction. We assumed he’d learned its cost after the Bush campaign defeated him in a South Carolina primary by doing push/polling phone calls about his role in the Keating S&L scandal and spreading rumors his having two illegitimate black children. He was the rare current Republican who spoke out against torture and condemned reckless tax giveaways for the rich. Now he’s disavowed all this and hired one of the prime architects of the Bush campaign’s South Carolina attacks on him to help prepare Palin’s now-fabled convention speech. His own speech was also full of repeated falsehoods. He even embraces the chorus of contempt toward Obama for daring to say that America is better of when we observe international rules like the prohibition on torture. And his encouragement of Palin’s distortions speaks worlds about his prizing politics over country.

Let's hope we finally reject the pit bull approach this time around, no matter how shiny the lipstick looks.


Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org ">www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly, email mailto:sympa@lists.onenw.org ">sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

What does it say about John McCain that he not only picked the least experienced Vice Presidential nominee in America's history, but picked someone he really didn't know? Departing so far from any normal concept of appropriate background, he should at least have had a sense of why this individual is so special. Meeting Palin once at a Republican governors' conference and having a single phone conversation on the eve of her selection just doesn't pass muster -- particularly for the oldest presidential candidate ever, who's had four malignant melanomas.

What makes Palin such a cynical choice is that McCain doesn't know her and doesn't know what drives her. Until she was selected by the Karl Rove types running his campaign (like campaign manager and Rove protégé Steve Schmidt), McCain might not even have recognized her on the street. Instead, she's a category selection, made for the crassest reasons by the same kinds of political operatives who brought us George W. Bush.

Their motives are obvious: Palin is an energetic and attractive woman who just might pick up some disgruntled Hillary supporters. She's a westerner and a hunter who might appeal to rural voters. She might energize a previously tepid base of hard-shell religious conservatives through her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Hard right king-maker James Dobson just said that because of her he'd vote for McCain.

These attributes may indeed prove Palin's worth as a vote-getter. But except for an abortion position that seems a stunning denial of reality (and a major affront to women), they have no relation to Palin's fitness for the job. McCain can't have any sense of what lies beneath the facile marketing categories -- like who Palin actually is, what she could contribute to the Vice Presidential office, and what it would be like to work together. He doesn't know her and has had no chance to. But because she fits the Rovian categories, none of that matters. Echoing so much that the Republicans have done for eight years and more, it's a choice likely to produce grave consequences, yet based overwhelmingly on political expediency.

Leave aside all the other troubling questions about Palin: her extreme abortion position; her backing the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" while campaigning for governor, then later claiming to disavow it; her support for teaching creationism as science; her Cheney-style vendetta of firing the Alaska public safety director who refused to fire her former brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper; her laughing during an interview at the jokes of a radio shock jock who mocked one of her political opponents (a cancer survivor) for her weight, and called the woman a "bitch" and a "cancer" on the state.

You can even leave aside that in a week where Hurricane Gustav threatens another Katrina and the Arctic ice cap separates from the adjacent land for the first time in human history, Palin insists that the jury is still out on whether humans are changing the weather of the planet.

In fact, leave aside Palin's actual record, because John McCain barely knows it. His vetters didn't even bother to go through the archives of Palin's local newspaper or talk with the former public safety director she fired. What choosing her shows instead is a politics that once again subordinates any greater common good to a raw pursuit of power. It echoes McCain praising Jerry Falwell after once calling him an "agent of intolerance." Or embracing Bush's campaign and administration after Bush's political hitmen defeated him in South Carolina with Swift Boat-type lies. Or when instead of challenging Obama's ideas, the McCain campaign tried to caricature him as one step up from Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Karl Rove's minions may be smiling at the brazen gamesmanship of this pick: but if Americans fall for it, they should know all too well what to expect.

Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly, email mailto:sympa@lists.onenw.org ">sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

I don't know when Hillary Clinton and her advisors started channeling Karl Rove, but it's happened and it's ugly. If you want to stop them from tearing the Democratic Party apart, then get on the phones today and volunteer to turn out the Obama vote in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Her campaign's been sleazy since Obama first emerged as a serious challenger. I've written about it hereand here. But in the past week, it's escalated. She's just run a radio ad on NAFTA that pretends to be a news report. Meanwhile, Canadian television reported that Clinton's campaign offered the same disavowals she just accused an Obama advisor of making. Her 3:00 AM ad echoed the worst of Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. When asked if she'd "take Senator Obama on his word that he's not a Muslim," she left the door open to the right wing lies by saying "there's nothing to base that on. As far as I know." She just handed McCain his campaign script by saying, "I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."

The longer Clinton stays in with these kinds of attacks, the more damage she will do, because she seems willing to destroy the Democratic chances in November to maintain her shot at the nomination. If you think this is a bad idea, please join me, get on the phones, and help increase the Obama vote in today's critical races. It just might make a key difference.

I admit it. I'm addicted. Since the primaries and caucuses began, I've spent practically every free hour reading article after article, and poll after poll, charting the shifting sands of the Democratic presidential race. As I've become inspired by Barack Obama's potential to engage ordinary citizens, and its roots in his organizer past, I've written articles I've hoped would help, talked incessantly about the campaign, and donated repeatedly--most fruitfully in a program that's allowed me to encourage other new small donors by equaling their contributions. But as I've cheered each successive victory and each new gain in the polls, I worry that my stance is just a bit too reminiscent of rooting for my favorite baseball team. It's time to do something seemingly more mundane, but always a bit nervous-making, and that is to get on the phone.

I've made phone calls in practically every election, and it matters. In 2006, I volunteered roughly 30 hours with MoveOn's CallForChange program, working my way across the country to call states with key Senate or House races. I convinced about a dozen people to go to the polls who wouldn't have otherwise, including some who at first said their vote didn't matter, and others who simply forgot it was election day. I was hesitant at first, but the web-based system that gave me the phone numbers prevented people from getting called multiple times. The script gave initial talking points that I later replaced with my own. So long as I was polite and low-key, the people I spoke with seemed to appreciate the conversations, or at least not to mind. While a dozen votes sounds pretty minimal, given the time I spent, 100,000 fellow MoveOn members were also participating, and if their efforts each bore similar fruits, we're talking a million votes . So when John Tester won by just 1,700 votes, Jim Webb by 7,200, and Claire McCaskill by 42,000, I felt proud to have done my part.

So I've just now started calling for Obama. He's tied or ahead in Texas. He's gotten strong new union endorsements from SEIU, The Teamsters, and the United Food and Commercial Workers. Chris Dodd and civil rights icon John Lewis have backed him and more superdelegates are switching. But nothing's guaranteed. Clinton could still come back if she does well enough in Texas and Ohio, and as she launches attack after scattershot attack, I fear that she'll give legitimacy to just enough Republican talking points to damage Obama come November if indeed he is the candidate. So the March 4th votes are critical. Whether our own states have already voted or have yet to, the Obama campaign voter calling program gives us all a chance to make an impact, as do the MoveOn voter calling parties this Sunday. I know there are Democrats still on the fence because I've talked with them, both within my own friendship circles and in the initial calls that I've made. I've even convinced a few and reminded others that we need to support whichever candidate becomes the nominee if we're to have any shot at reversing Bush's disasters. To hold back because I'm busy, distracted by the political horse race, or afraid that people will disagree, would be to abdicate my chance to help shape history.



Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, and Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org

I gave John Edwards more money than I've given to any candidate in my life, and I'm glad I did. He raised critical issues about America's economic divides, and got them on the Democratic agenda. He was the first major candidate to stake out strong comprehensive platforms on global warming and health care. He hammered away on the Iraq war, even using scarce campaign resources to run ads during recent key Senate votes. He'd have made a powerful nominee—and president.

I've been going through my mourning for a while for his campaign not getting more traction, so his withdrawal announcement didn't shock me. But sad as I am about his departure, I feel good about being able to switch my support to Barack Obama, and will do all I can to help him win.

I've actually been giving small donations to both since Iowa, while hoping that the Edwards campaign would belatedly catch fire, and exploring ways the two campaigns could work together. With Edwards gone, I think Obama is the natural choice for his supporters, and that Edwards should step up and endorse him as his preferred nominee. All three major Democratic candidates have their flaws and strengths—they all have excellent global warming plans, for instance. But Edwards wasn't just being rhetorical when he said that both he and Obama represent voices for change, versus Clinton's embodiment of a Washington status quo joining money and power.

Here are a dozen reasons why I feel proud to have my energy, dollars and vote now go to Obama:
1. The Iraq war: Obviously, invading Iraq remains the most damaging single action of the Bush era. Obama spoke out against it at a public rally while Clinton was echoing Bush's talking points and voting for it. Obama's current advisors also consistently opposed the war, while Clinton's consistently supported it. It's appropriate that Clinton jumped to her feet to clap when Bush said in his recent State of the Union address that there was "no doubt" that "the surge is working."
2. Clinton's Iran vote: The Kyl-Lieberman bill gave the Bush administration so wide an opening for war that Jim Webb called it "Dick Cheney's fondest pipe dream." Hillary voted for it. Obama and Edwards opposed it.
3. The youth vote: If a Party attracts new voters for their first few elections, they tend to stick for the rest of their lives. Obama is doing this on a level unseen in decades. By tearing down the candidate who inspires them, Clinton will so embitter many young voters they'll stay home.
4. Hope matters: When people join movements to realize raised hopes, our nation has a chance of changing. When they damp their hopes, as Clinton suggests, it doesn't. Like Edwards, Obama has helped people feel they can participate in a powerful transformative narrative. That's something to embrace, not mock.
5. Follow the money: All the candidates have some problematic donors—it's the system--but Hillary's the only one with money from Rupert Murdoch. Edwards and Obama refused money from lobbyists. Clinton claimed they were just citizens speaking out, and held a massive fundraising dinner with homeland security lobbyists. Obama spearheaded a public financing bill in the Illinois legislature, while Clinton had to be shamed by a full-page Common Cause ad in the Des Moines Register to join Obama and Edwards in taking that stand.
6. John McCain: If McCain is indeed the Republican nominee, than as Frank Rich brilliantly points out, he's perfectly primed to run as the war hero with independence, maturity and integrity, against the reckless, corrupt and utterly polarizing Clintons. Never mind that McCain's integrity and independence is largely a media myth (think the Charles Keating scandal and his craven embrace of Bush in 2004), but Bill and Hillary heralding their two-for-one White House return will energize and unite an otherwise ambivalent and fractured Republican base.
7. Mark Penn: Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, runs a PR firm that prepped the Blackwater CEO for his recent congressional testimony, is aggressively involved in anti-union efforts, and has represented villains from the Argentine military junta and Philip Morris to Union Carbide after the 1984 Bhopal disaster.
8. Sleazy campaigning: Hillary stayed on the ballot in Michigan after Edwards and Obama pulled their names, then audaciously said the delegates she won unopposed should count retroactively. She, Bill and their surrogates have conducted a politics of personal attack that begins to echo Karl Rove, from distorting Obama's position on Iraq and abortion choice, to dancing out surrogates to imply that the Republicans will tar him as a drug user.
9. NAFTA: Hillary can't have it both ways in stoking nostalgia for Bill. NAFTA damaged lives and communities and widened America's economic divides. Edwards spoke out powerfully against it. Clinton now claims the agreement needs to be modified, but her husband staked all his political capital in ramming it through, helping to hollow out America's economy and split the Democratic Party for the 1994 Gingrich sweep.
10. Widening the circle: Obviously Obama spurs massive enthusiasm in the young and in the African-American community. I'm also impressed at the range of people turning out to support his campaign. At a Seattle rally I attended, the volunteer state campaign chair had started as Perot activist. The founding coordinator in the state's second-largest county, a white female Iraq war vet, voted for Bush in 2000 and written in Colin Powell in 2004 before becoming outraged about Iraq "I've always leaned conservative," she said, "but Obama's announcement speech moved me to tears. The Audacity of Hope made me rethink my beliefs. He inspires me with his honesty and integrity." As well as inspiring plenty of progressive activists, Obama is engaging people who haven't come near progressive electoral politics in years.
11. The story we tell: Obama captures people with a narrative about where he wants to take America. His personal story is powerful, but he keeps the emphasis on the ordinary citizens who need to take action to make change. Clinton, in contrast, focuses largely on her personal story, her presumed strengths and travails. Except for the symbolism of having a woman president, it's a recipe that downplays the possibility of common action for change.
12. Citizen movements matter: Edwards not only ran for president, but worked to build a citizen movement capable of working for change whatever his candidacy's outcome. Obama has taken a similar approach, beginning when he first organized low-income Chicago communities and coordinated a still-legendary voter registration drive. His speeches consciously encourage his supporters to join together and constitute a force equivalent to the abolitionist, union, suffrage, and civil rights movements. Like Edwards, he's working to build a movement capable of pushing his policies through the political resistance he will face (and probably of pushing him too if he fails to lead with enough courage). In this context, Clinton's LBJ/Martin Luther King comparison, and her dismissal of the power of words to inspire people, is all too revealing. She really does believe change comes from knowing how to work the insider levers of power. Edwards and Obama know it takes more.

That's why this Edwards supporter is proud to do all I can to make Barack Obama the Democratic nominee and president.


Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email mailto:sympa@lists.onenw.or ">sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

Hillary Clinton has now been campaigning in Florida and arguing that the state's delegates should count, along with those from the Michigan primary. This would sound fair enough, unless you know that both Michigan and Florida moved their primaries up after the Democrats agreed that the only states to vote before February 5th ("Super Tuesday") would be Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina (picked because they were relatively small states, representing different demographics). The Democratic Party agreed that votes from the two renegade primaries would not count. The major candidates made an explicit agreement not to campaign in either state. Florida law required that all candidates keep their names on, but Obama and Edwards pulled their names from the Michigan ballot.

Now Clinton is trying to change the rules mid-game. She's arguing that her delegates from Michigan should count after all. (Running essentially unopposed, she still got only 55% of the vote, since 40% voted "uncommitted" and Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel--and Chris Dodd, who'd already dropped out--split the remaining 5%.) She's campaigning in Florida with a wink and a nod (doing closed talks and photo ops, not public rallies), while trying to get those delegates to count too. She seems to be banking on the hope that a Florida win, even if only symbolic, will erase Obama's momentum from his massive South Carolina victory.

Now you can argue the right or wrong of the Democratic decision to put teeth into the agreement that the primaries should have some kind of structured sequence, and not just be a mad dash to see who comes earliest. And the Florida situation was created not by state Democrats but by the Republican legislature. But I can find no evidence that Clinton raised objections when the initial decisions were made. And now she's trying to change the rules in the middle of the game. Her surrogate Bill overtly supported a similar attempt when allied teachers union officials tried to ban special caucuses on the Nevada strip after the Culinary Workers Union endorsed Obama. Ironically, Clinton won a majority of these caucuses, but her contempt for the rules was the same. She was a team player only when she thought it would benefit her.

We actually saw the same pattern in 2006. In a season when Democratic candidates were scrambling to raise enough to finance an ever-expanding array of competitive races, Clinton made a conscious decision to raise $52 million for a Senate campaign that she could have won in her pajamas, spent $40.8 million (to beat a token opponent who spent less than $6 million), and transferred the rest to her presidential campaign. Only the self-funded Jon Corzine has ever spent more for a Senate race in our history.

You could say she was just playing the game, but Barack Obama and John Edwards, in comparison, campaigned throughout the country to support worthy Democratic candidates, while doing negligible fundraising for themselves. Obama emerged with less than a million in the bank and the Edwards campaign ended up still in debt from 2004. Their top priorities really did seem to be helping other Democrats win a critical election, instead of subordinating all other goals to their own personal futures.

Imagine if Hillary had transferred $20 million into the dozen Congressional campaigns that Democrats lost by margins as close as a few hundred votes. Or into Harold Ford's Senatorial campaign, to help close a $5-million gap with Republican Bob Corker. A few extra ads or mailings might well have tipped the balance But Hillary made different decisions. Much as may have been true with her support of a recent Iran vote so reckless that Senator James Webb called it "Dick Cheney's pipe dream," her priority was election-year positioning.

If we look at Clinton's actions throughout this campaign, they consistently put her right to win above broader principles. Even the tears that turned around her New Hampshire campaign seemed to me to be about her frustration that the nomination she thought was her birthright seemed about to slip away. As Frank Rich has written, even her choice to feature Bill Clinton in the campaign as lead attack dog risked bringing up enough old ghosts to sharply increase the likelihood of Republican victory in November. No one runs for president unless they are ambitious, but once you think you have the right to rewrite the rules in mid-course, or subordinate every opportunity of your critical allies to your own personal gain, you set up a precedent unsettlingly like the administration we have just endured for the past seven years. And I don't think we want to go there again.




Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org

Politics can be a rough game. Candidates need to hold their competitors accountable and challenge distortions and lies. And God knows, we need a Democratic nominee who's willing to fight. But Hillary Clinton's campaign has included far too many cheap shots, sleazy manipulations, and unsavory players.

New questionable actions emerge daily. You're probably familiar with many. But it's the broader pattern that disturbs me--how much the Clinton campaign seems to nurture questionable actions from her operatives, supporters, and surrogates. And how the campaign's actions go beyond drawing legitimate political lines to an all-too-Rovian instinct to do whatever's deemed necessary to take down those blocking Clinton's potential victory. Here's a representative list of actions that, taken together, offer a troubling portent for her candidacy and presidency.

Start with the hiring of chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn. He's CEO of a PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, that prepped the Blackwater CEO for his recent congressional testimony, is advising the giant industrial laundry corporation Cintas in fighting unionization, and whose website proudly heralded their union-busting expertise until it became a potential Clinton liability and they removed that section. B-M has historically represented everyone from the Argentine military junta and Philip Morris to Union Carbide after the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

Then there are Clinton's campaign donors. Any major candidate has some dubious supporters, but Clinton's gotten money from particularly noxious sources. Start with her donation from Rupert Murdoch, who's given to no other Democrat. Add in massive amounts of money from Washington lobbyists and from industries like defense, banking, health care, and oil and energy providers (though Obama's also gotten a lot from some of these industries). Then there's Norman Hsu, who brought in over $850,000 to Hillary's campaign after returning to the US following his flight to evade a fraud conviction (Hsu was subsequently rearrested, sentenced to three years, and is facing further federal charges, and the campaign eventually returned the money he'd raised). There's the Nebraska data processing company InfoUSA, whose CEO, Vin Gupta, used private corporate jets to fly the Clintons on business, personal, and campaign trips, gave Bill Clinton a $3.3 million consulting contract, and is now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly diverting company money to his own personal uses. Mississippi attorney Dickie Scruggs recently canceled a major December 15 Hillary fundraiser (with Bill Clinton headlining) after being indicted for trying to bribe a judge. Major international sweatshop owners, the Saipan-based Tan family, have given Clinton $26,000, complementing their previous massive support for Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay. That doesn't even count dubious supporters from the past, like Peter Paul, the convicted con-artist turned event producer who coordinated a massive Hollywood Clinton fundraiser during the 2,000 election. Taken together, it's a pretty tainted constellation of backers.

Like most candidates, Clinton spends the bulk of her money on ads and mailings, and she's taken some pretty problematic approaches there too. I wonder how many of the New Hampshire women who voted last minute for Clinton were swayed by a mailing claiming that Obama wasn't really committed to abortion rights because he'd voted "present" on some abortion-related legislative votes. Except that Obama had done so as part of a strategy devised by Illinois Planned Parenthood to protect vulnerable swing district representatives. New England Planned Parenthood's Board Chair strongly refuted Clinton's letter, pointing out that Obama had a 100% record on all the votes that really mattered. But the mailing may still have damaged his support.

The distortion of Obama's position on abortion echoes Hillary's audacious argument that Obama really wasn't against the Iraq war and betrayed his promises by failing to vote against war appropriation bills after the Democrats couldn't override Bush's veto. I wish Obama had bucked the Democratic leadership and taken a stronger stand. But it's a gross distortion of history to equate his positions with Clinton's overt support for the war authorization, refusal to apologize for her vote, and claim that she was really doing it all to promote more diplomatic solutions.

We can find further distortions in a mailing sent out before the Iowa caucuses by the independent expenditure committee of a key Clinton ally, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The AFSCME mailing attacked Obama on his health care plan by using a John Edwards quote that was featured so prominently that recipients could assume that his campaign was the source of the attack piece. This and other actions so disturbed a group of seven AFSCME International Vice Presidents wrote a public letter to their union president, saying that although the union had endorsed Clinton on a split vote, the political committee had no mandate to attack Obama. They demanded the committee stop what they called "fundamentally dishonest" attacks.

Other surrogates have attacked Obama's character. Twice they've tried to raise Obama's early drug use as a campaign issue--despite his having addressed it directly and frankly in his book Dreams From My Father. Hillary's New Hampshire campaign chair, Billy Shaheen, mentioned it first, claiming that he was only worried about how the Republicans might use it. Sheehan resigned from the campaign after a storm of criticism, then Black Entertainment Television CEO Robert Johnson (who's backed Bush on issues like the estate tax) raised it again, with Clinton standing next to him at a South Carolina rally. After Johnson's words drew major heat, Clinton belatedly distanced herself from them, but the smear still stands, along with the disingenuous claim that those making it were just neutral participants, only trying to serve the Party's best interests.

Clinton's campaign also attacked the John Edwards campaign for appearing in New Hampshire with the parents of Nataline Sarkisyan, the 17-year-old leukemia patient who died after CIGNA refused her a liver transplant. Clinton press secretary Jay Carson claimed that the US needs to elect "somebody who's actually going to help people and not use them as talking points." Never mind that the Sarkisyans had initiated the chance to speak out by contacting Edwards about appearing at a Manchester New Hampshire town hall campaign appearance. To the Clinton campaign, their appearance had to be suspect, because they were supporting Edwards and his ideas.

The campaign has also attempted more directly to discourage participation by voters who might support Clinton's opponents. A judge just shut down the lawsuit filed by the pro-Clinton leadership of the Nevada teacher's union, which sought to prevent long-scheduled caucuses from being held at central locations on the main casino strip, where workers largely represented by the Obama-endorsing Culinary Workers Union would find it easier to attend. When asked, Hillary Clinton claimed to have "no opinion on the lawsuit" and Bill Clinton overtly supported it.

New Hampshire saw parallel voter suppression tactics, as the campaign encouraged the New Hampshire Democratic Party to evict Obama get-out-the-vote observers from the polls. In Iowa, the Clinton Campaign tried to discourage out-of-state students from returning to their campuses to participate in the caucuses. In the Michigan primary, Clinton kept her name on the ballot after the state violated Democratic National Committee rules by moving its primary ahead of the Feb 5 "Super Tuesday" vote, while Edwards and Obama took theirs off.

Campaigns can have either closed or open information styles. Clinton's comes far too close to the Bush-Cheney model, as when the Clintons successfully killed a major story in the national men's magazine GQ about Clinton campaign infighting. Author Josh Green had written a long critical previous piece on Clinton for The Atlantic, and campaign press secretary Jay Carson threatened to deny the magazine access to Bill Clinton for a separate cover story on his international foundation work. GQ acquiesced and pulled the critical piece.

The flip side of trying to stop negative coverage is manufacturing praise. Clinton's campaign did this when they gave planted questions to Iowa student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, and according to Chasanoff, to other students as well. After being driven to a public event by Clinton interns, Chasanoff was introduced to a Clinton staffer who showed her a list of suggested questions to ask, one of which she used at Clinton's forum. It's not quite like Bush inviting the softball inquiries of former male-prostitute turned right-wing blogger Jeff Gannon. But it isn't so different either.

Taken together, these examples echo the Bush's administration's tendency to attack anyone who challenges them. They echo Clinton's refusal to apologize for her Iraq war vote or for an Iran vote so reckless that Jim Webb called it "Dick Cheney's fondest pipe dream." They hardly bode well for reversing the massive erosions of transparency of the past seven years.

The list could go on, but it's the pattern that's important. It's true that one person's cheap shot artist is another's fierce competitor. Obama himself has called politics "a full-contact sport," and used legal maneuvers to block a long-time state legislator when he first ran for office. And Democrats will need to be fierce in their campaigning if they're going to defeat the right-wing Swiftboating machine that gave Bush the last two presidencies. So maybe I'd be more charitable if I didn't disagree so strongly with Clinton's Iraq and Iran votes, and utter failure to take leadership in standing up to Bush when he was riding high in the polls. But I think I'd still have a problem. I look at the actions of her campaign, and see an ugly example, a ruthlessness not remotely equaled by either Obama or Edwards. I'll vote for the last Democrat standing, because the Republicans will continue the current administration's disastrous priorities. But Hillary's scorched-earth approach threatens to fracture the party if she does get the nomination, and to leave a trail of bitterness even if she wins. We can do better for the Democratic nominee.


Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

Obviously Barack Obama and John Edwards are competing with each other, but the caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, and Washington State give the two campaigns a chance to also coordinate to maximize the delegates they gain. Edwards and Dennis Kucinich actually did this in 2004 in Iowa and it played a real role in Edwards's Iowa unexpected Iowa success. At this point he and Obama are competing with and even sniping at each other, but if they don't stop Hillary Clinton, she still has the inside track to the nomination. And for all that Obama and Edwards have differences, I think they're closer politically (and more progressive) than either are to Clinton, who voted for the Iraq War, supported the Kyl-Lieberman Iran vote that Jim Webb called "Dick Cheney's fondest pipe dream," and feel no shame in raising as much money as she can from Washington lobbyists. (Plus the regressive Democratic Leadership Council still features Hillary as part of their core circle). Both Obama and Edwards would gain by doing this, and the 2004 precedent suggests it's perfectly legal.

How would it work? The same way it did in 2004. At least in Iowa it takes a 15% threshold in any given precinct to gain a delegate. So both candidates will inevitably have people left over in most precincts who don't quite get them to that threshold. But what if both publicly pledged (and sent out instructions) that wherever that situation occurred, they'd try to combine so whichever of the two had more unrepresented attendees after all the efforts to convince stray delegates would get the additional delegate. If they had equal numbers left unrepresented, they could combine and flip a coin. It may sound like it would have a minimal impact, but multiplied by precinct after precinct it could matter.

Some of this will happen anyway, but it's be a lot more likely if Obama and Edwards openly embrace it, saying explicitly that they're doing this because although each thinks they'd be the best nominee, they also think that the other represents change more than does Hillary Clinton, which is true. If they teamed up explicitly, it would probably gain some headlines, and done right (maybe with a joint press statement or even a joint press conference) would seem less like their piling on a front-runner than drawing a necessary political line. I think it could only help.

It is a calculated risk for both in helping one of their likely opponents, but the first priority seems still stopping Clinton's momentum. And this also sets the stage for Obama and Edwards and their supporters to keep on working together in other ways, like on the convention platform. Then they can go back to laying out their areas of disagreement.

Ideally, again, they'd do this at a national level, but even if they don't, those of us participating in the caucuses can do what we can to forward this approach. My personal sentiments? Whatever the outcome, I'd be delighted if one of the headlines read "Hillary Clinton finishes third."




Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

I know Kucinich supporters don't like Hillary Clinton. When I write about her, they respond, again and again. "She's a bought and paid corporatist." "She backed the Iraq war from the beginning." "She supported the regressive bankruptcy bill." In fact, many say, "If she's nominated I'm staying home." Or. "If Hillary gets the nomination, I'll change my registration to Independent and vote third party."

So think about how you'd feel if the headlines after the early caucuses and primaries read "Hillary places third," and you were part of that process. Imagine if those losses helped stop her nomination, the party ended up with either Barack Obama or John Edwards as the nominee, and one of the two became America's president. I suspect you'd feel a whole lot better than having Hillary as president. And way better than our enacting Bush revisited through her losing to Guiliani, Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, or even the reborn John McCain, who's not only promoted the Iraq war since before it happened, but even got caught on video singing "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran" to the words of the classic Beach Boys song, as if war with Iran were some kind of joke. I'm sure you'd rather see Edwards or Obama than any of these.

But of course you'd rather have Kucinich. He's the most progressive, you say, and that's true. He opposed the war from the beginning and even organized Congress against it. He's got a great platform, and is strong on every issue, the antithesis of a corporate tool.

But he's also not going to be the nominee. No one has come from polling one or two percent at this late date to capture the presidency. No Congressman has won since James Garfield. There are just too many other candidates at this point with too much support, momentum, and money. If Kucinich hasn't captured America's imagination enough so far, there's just not time for this to happen fast enough to win. I also think his message plays better with already committed progressive audiences than with those less political, one reason it hasn't resonated more in the polls. And my guess is that America's just not ready for a vegan, which while it shouldn't make any difference, offers prime fodder for the Carl Rove types about how he's so out of the mainstream he's going to try to take away people's macaroni and cheese.

So if Kucinich can't win, supporting him in the key early races means valuing a symbolic educational campaign over one that has the capacity to actually affect who is nominated.
I think Kucinich people can make a difference, and that the tradeoffs are worth it to support Edwards or Obama.

Right now Clinton, Obama, and Edwards are all running virtually neck-and-neck in the Iowa polls. Any of them could win. Any could come in third. In the latest averages, they're within five percentage points of each other, between 25% & 30%. Whatever the outcome, it's going to set the tone for subsequent momentum, media coverage, money, and everything else that makes such a critical difference in who wins. Because the primary and caucus schedule is so compressed, and quite possibly over by mid-February, whoever emerges from those first few primaries with major momentum will likely be the nominee.

So how could Kucinich supporters, with their candidate polling at 1%-2%, even make a difference? First, because it's a caucus system, this favors groups that are organized and enthusiastic. Only 125,000 people attended Iowa's Democratic caucuses last round, but they sank Howard Dean's candidacy when he was the clear favorite going in. If Kucinich supporters could get out 12,500 people that's 10% of the vote, if 6250, 5%. Neither would be enough to qualify under the 15% threshold for representation, but if they could account for even just a few points difference in how the delegates are allocated, that might shift who comes first among the three leading Democrats. It might make the difference between Hillary being the nominee and Edwards or Obama.

A bit more on Hillary's dangers: I've writtenabout her potential to shatter the Democratic coalition and bring about a Republican resurgence even if she gets in. Recent polls actually show her losing or in a dead heat with McCain, Giuliani, and in some polls, Romney and Huckabee, Even if she does get in, progressives are likely to be fighting her on half the initiatives she proposes. She also spent more money in 2006than in all but one Senate campaign in America's history—to win a race she could have won in her pajamas, and at a time when shifting dollars to other Democratic campaigns would likely have gained a few more seats.

So are Edwards or Obama any better? I'd say Edwards is a whole lot more progressive now than in 2004—sometimes major life crises will do that to you. But even back then, he was progressive enough that the Kucinich campaign instructed its supporters to team up with those of Edwards and tip each other over the Iowa vote thresholds wherever possible. Edwards isn't perfect, but I've seen him go into a room of trade union activists and lead not just with economic justice issues where he knows he's going to get a strong reception, but with the Iraq war and global warming—the opposite of pandering to his audience. I've also seen him use scarce campaign money to run ads asking Congress to stand up to Bush on the war. And he was the first of the three major candidates to have a strong and comprehensive global warming plan, and the first to have some comprehensive universal health care plan. He's spent a lot of time addressing issues like poverty that are hardly political winners. And yes, he's a bit wealthy for my tastes, but at least he made his money fighting major corporations. He's speaking out enough about their power on the campaign trail, that this makes him my first choice, though Obama also has a lot that's attractive. In contrast with Hillary, neither of them are taking money from corporate lobbyists, and neither voted for the awful Kyl-Lieberman amendment on Iran.

Obama's also got some pretty progressive history. He spoke out against the war before it started, and has continued to do so, even I would have liked his voice a little louder. Both he and Edwards are clear that it is unacceptable to keep American bases in Iraq, while Hillary Clinton has equivocated. Equally important, Obama began as a community organizer, working in low-income communities, then returned to represent social justice advocates after his graduation from Harvard Law School, foregoing far more lucrative opportunities. Obama's also watched his mother spend her last months while dying of cancer having to read through the fine print on the forms of an insurance company that was trying to drop her coverage. That's an experience that could resonate with America. Finally both Obama and Edwards talk explicitly about the links between past movements for justice, and the need to build their successors in the present—while Clinton, I believe, sees current activists mostly as a troublesome threat. To me those are significant differences.

It also matters that both Edwards and Obama also beat the Republican candidates in most major polls. That's important if for no other reason than because one more Supreme Court Justice like Alito or Roberts, and we'll spend the next thirty years with courts that would have make Mussolini proud. And because the Republicans will do little or nothing on the most critical threat of global warming (even John McCain recently absented himself when his vote could have broken the Republican filibuster on the most progressive energy bill in 30 years). And because pallid the Democrats can be, and they can be pallid, they won't appoint people like the National Labor Relations Board officials who have been busily reclassifying nurses as supervisors so they can't join a union, and prohibiting the use of workplace emails for union-related concerns. So winnability matters as well.

Over the next six weeks you're going to have a choice. You can vote for Kucinich in your primaries and caucuses, make a symbolic point, and maybe give him a shade more clout to stay in the race. But whether he gets 1% or 5%, his presence when they're done is going to be minimal, and his coverage negligible as well. Your other choice is to do what you can to try to make Edwards or Obama the nominee, and potentially help tip the balance in who ends up president. To me, that's the greater political impact

Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email mailto:sympa@lists.onenw.org ">sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

Because I write books on citizen movements, people have often asked me what social change groups I personally support. I'm not a wealthy donor and have often had to fundraise for different projects. But as I've moved from an situation where I barely get by to one where I have a bit of extra resources, I've valued the chance to donate to causes I believe in, with the hope that often-small donations will matched by those of others.

The end of the year is often a time when people often figure out their donations (though most of the groups I support are too politically engaged to be tax-deductible), so I thought I'd post an informal list that thought might be helpful, along with some of the rationales of why I've chosen these causes. I focus primarily on groups that do a particularly good job of engaging people, particularly people who aren't necessarily politically involved, as opposed to simply advocating for good policies. I've also been supporting political campaigns that I think can make a difference. (And of course the list doesn't count some great local groups I support). As we've seen the last seven years, electoral politics matters hugely, but we also need to build strong and durable citizen movements, so I've focused on organizations that help with both. And of course there are lots of great groups that didn't make this list.

First, you should definitely have your phone and wireless service with Working Assets/Credo. The company was founded specifically to raise money for progressive causes, and has given away $50 million since their inception (subscribers vote each year on where the money goes). The company also does lots of additional engagement projects, from voter registration drives to email action alerts, and their top executives are good and committed people. Signing up with them helps support all sorts of good causes.

Speaking of organizations, I don't know if you're familiar with the environmentally-oriented auto club, Better World Club, but they're a great alternative to AAA, which despite its wholesome image, spends major resources lobbying for new road construction and against non-car transit options. I found out about Better World through the NPR show "Car Talk," and they contract with pretty much the same network of local towing companies (I've had no problem when I've needed assistance), give out similar free maps, and have other comparable services. But they also donate to environmental causes, encourage their members to speak out on them, and even have a roadside service option for bicycles, though I haven't had to use it as yet.

So on to some organizations, some well-known and others not:

They aren't that well known, but I loveInstitute for Public Accuracy . With a staff of just six people, they do a wonderful job in securing a media presence for progressive alternative perspectives. Every day they fax and email releases to an array of media outlets, containing three or four experts weighing in on a specific topic, generally one related to breaking news. The media outlets then contact the experts, generating significant coverage. When I’ve been on their releases I’ve gotten everything from the BBC and the largest newspaper chain in Japan, to the God-awful Bill O’Reilly show on Fox, major commercial radio outlets, and alternative networks like Pacifica.

Most people have heard of MoveOn.org by now. They draw plenty of heat from the political right, but that’s because they’re probably the most single effective progressive social change organization in terms of getting regular people involved. They did get in trouble this year trying to be too cute with the headline of their General Petraeus ad (though Petraeus is giving exactly the kind of political cover to the Bush administration that Generals Maxwell Taylor and William Westmoreland did for Johnson and Nixon during Vietnam). But no group in recent years has engaged more ordinary people in progressive politics, particularly new participants, and they're working continually to get their over 3 million members not only to sign petitions and email their Congressional representatives, but also to take additional steps towards involvement, like participating in local activist networks, or joining the phone banks whose seven million phone calls helped shift the House and Senate in 2006. They do this all with a tiny national staff (less than a dozen people at one recent point), and I've donated to a variety of their efforts from general support to specific targeted campaigns. (The political right promotes the myth that they're just puppets of George Soros, but although Soros did contribute significantly to their 2004 election efforts, their primary base has always been donations from regular members).

I don’t share the theology of Sojourners (traditionalist Christian, tending toward evangelical), but no one has had a greater impact in getting conservative Christians, including evangelicals, to think about peace and social justice issues. Founder Jim Wallis has been an amazingly influential prophetic voice. Together with the organization, he really has created powerful ripples for change in a constituency that has been the core grassroots base for people like Bush and Cheney.

WellstoneAction does great regional trainings for progressive candidates running for office, including people who've never run before. Founded by the children of the late Senator Paul Wellstone, they continue his mission of trying to broaden citizen participation. If we're trying to bring new people into politics, they need to learn the necessary skills to run effective grassroots campaigns. No one does this better.

If you've ever felt that progressive organizations end up being less than the sum of their parts come election day, America Votes is an antidote. They bring together major environmental, labor, social justice, and peace groups to register voters and get them out to vote come. In 2006 they involved 250 different groups--from Acorn and the AFL-CIO to the NAACP and the Sierra Club--to coordinate and magnify their impact. And they reached 13 million voters in key swing states..

Democracy for America does similar work to MoveOn, but are a bit more face-to-face focused. They grew out of the 2004 Howard Dean campaign as a way of keeping participants involved, and do a mix of excellent action alerts, their own campaign trainings, and general organizing. They're smaller, but more intimate than MoveOn. And they put lots of good energy into building local community.

Speaking of Howard Dean, the media may have buried his career for trying to shout over a noise-filled room after he lost the Iowa caucuses, but I love what he's doing with the Democratic National Committee. He's trying to recreate the Democrats as a genuine grassroots organization as opposed to one relying primarily on media consultants and ad buyers, and to do it nationwide, and he's doing this despite major opposition from DC insiders. I don't know if he'll succeed in his goal of recreating a Democratic Party where people actually participate on a local level—like they used to do in the old political machines, but without the corrupt ward bosses. But if these horizontal connections grow enough, we'll see state parties strong enough to actually begin to call the shots on a national level. And to maybe even make possible genuine primary fights when incumbents get too complacent and refuse to lead. This is a long-term process, and may not succeed, because the Democrats have let their base atrophy for decades. But for all my frustrations with the timidity of Senate and Congressional Democrats, and believe me I'm frustrated, I've felt great supporting the DNC in building that basic infrastructure of volunteer coordinators and grassroots organizers that has the potential to both revitalize the party, and help shift its direction.

I also think it's important to support individual candidates who we like, and not just leave this to the big money donors. The internet really has made the small donor model more possible, so I often use it to add my small contribution to those of thousands of others. I'll sometimes give directly to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who then funnel resources to appropriate campaigns. They have the advantage of having an overview on which races are competitive and which aren't, and have a sense of who needs additional resources. But I can't say I always like their choices, so more often I'll pick specific candidates who not only seem to have a decent chance of winning, but also more closely reflect my values. Those tend to be the ones featured in the emails of MoveOn or on the pages of politically oriented blogs like the Daily Kos.

I've also been giving some to the presidential campaigns, just because the stakes are so high. I like to think my money is going not only for ads (where my dollars feel a pitiful drop in the bucket), but also for the campaign infrastructure that actually coordinates volunteers, gets people out to vote, and in the case of both the Edwards and Obama campaigns, goes to some lengths to try to build grassroots movements that might stick around, no matter who ends up getting the nomination. I've written about my objections to Hillary Clinton in some recent articles like Hillary Clinton and the Politics of Disappointment and Hillary Clinton and the Ghosts of 2006, Clinton is my distinct last choice of the Democratic candidates, though still better than the Republican field. I've been giving most of my money to John Edwards, who I think has taken the strongest recent stands. I loved how when he spoke to a Seattle union audience, Edwards led with not with economic issues where he knew he'd get an enthusiastic response, but with more challenging positions on the Iraq war and global warming.. And I appreciate that he's been the first to stake out strong positions on issues like health care and global warming, with the other major Democratic candidates following in his wake.

I think Edwards still definitely has a chance, and a recent CNN poll flagged him as the only Democrat to beat all four major Republican candidates But I've also given some money, though a lesser amount, to Barack Obama, who I like as well, and who really does seem to be bringing new participants into his campaign in an exciting way, especially younger voters. I was quite impressed hearing Obama in Seattle recently, and think he could be both an effective candidate and president. And though I'm wary about they way "unify America" rhetoric can blur real policy differences and interests, I just read a very thoughtful recent piece that links it to Obama's community organizing background and suggests it might actually be the soundest approach in a nation where people have been deliberately polarized for short-term political gain..

Of course none of these electoral donations sever the link between money and politics, which we have to do if we are going to reclaim America. By far the best approach is the Clean Elections model that I described in one of the profiles in mySoul of a Citizen book, and which has worked wonderfully in Maine, Arizona, and Vermont. If you raise enough $5 contributions in these states, you now get public resources to run a competitive campaign. The approach has brought wonderful new people into politics (I recently heard a great presentation from an Arizona teacher who was able to run for state rep only because of this process, but could now be a rising political star). And it severs the link between campaigning and having to constantly do the bidding of wealthy donors. Public Campaign is the great group that coordinates the national efforts (with good work from a reenergized Common Cause and from the campus efforts of Democracy Matters ). Many states also have local Clean Elections efforts that are coordinated through Public Campaign. On a hopeful note, all the Democratic candidates have said they'll back the Clean Elections approach, although Hillary Clinton only signed on after Common Cause ran major Iowa ads on the subject, and it will clearly take a sustained grassroots effort to make this happen.

All of the groups and campaigns I've mentioned so far are multi-issue, because the challenges we face are so profoundly interconnected. But there are also some issue-specific groups that I've also been supporting.

I'm working a lot on global warming, as you may know. And more good groups spring up on the issue each day, like the 1Sky coalition, or the Focus the Nation project that's planning a day of national teach-ins January 31. The Climate Crisis Coalition puts out a particularly useful weekly digest of relevant news in terms of related science, new energy initiatives, and citizen and political efforts, and does it on an absolute shoestring. But of all the good environmental groups, the Sierra Clubseems the most genuinely participatory and grassroots—which is key for me. Most of these groups lobby and take good stands, but the Sierra Club really puts energy into developing local chapters, which means it connects people to each other and then encourages them to take the lead. Sierra Club has also been in the forefront in creating labor-environmental alliances, as in its Blue-Green Alliance with the United Steel Workers, who along with SEIU, do more innovative organizing projects than any other unions in America.

In fact, the United Steel Workers have a new Associates Member program, Fight Back America, which anyone can join for $40 (less if you're a student or unemployed), and which both builds their base and gives you a connection with union activism even if you aren't in one (or if you're in a union that's doing little to build social movements). The other major union-oriented group that anyone can join or support is Jobs With Justice. They do great work building labor-community coalitions, and have local offices in 23 states.

I also belong to the NAACP because they're still the major force working for racial justice and these issues are far from solved. Results is a great grassroots non-partisan lobby group on global and national hunger issues And I'm a card-carrying ACLU member because well--after what Bush, Cheney, and their appointed judges and justices have done to the constitution, we have a long way to go to get back to a balance that Thomas Jefferson would have approved of. (interestingly, somewhere around a third of the ACLU's new post-9/11 members have been self-described political conservatives.)

Finally, we need strong forces pushing outside the electoral arena to get us out of Iraq and to prevent future destructive wars. Lots of the multi-issue groups I've mentioned make this a major focus, but there are also some excellent specific ones working on war and peace issues, like Peace Action (formerly Sane/Freeze, the largest national group focusing just on peace issues), and True Majority (founded by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's). I'm not a pacifist, but The War Resister's League has carried the banner of peace activism for 85 years, and I always admire what they do. And there are some local friends, The Backbone Campaign, who are probably a bit harsher on mainline elected Democrats than I am, but have initiated wonderfully innovative efforts with puppets and processions, that have developed a national presence. I also support a couple of primarily Jewish peace groups that are definitely pro-Israel but push for a major shift from current Israeli policies), Americans For Peace Now andBrit Tzedek.

Hope this list is useful. I can think of lots more good groups I'd love to give to, but this is one person's list, and I thought it just might offer a useful window into some citizen engagement efforts that I admire and try to support.


By the way, a friend named Harvey McKinnon has a nice little book on donating called The Power of Giving. It's a bit more volunteerism oriented than I'd like (vs social action), but has some good thoughts on the role of giving in our lives


Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email mailto:sympa@lists.onenw.org ">sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

Ever since Hillary Clinton supported the reckless Kyl-Lieberman Iran bill, her Democratic competitors have been blasting her for her stand, and rightly so. By defining Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, a core branch of the Iranian military, as a foreign terrorist organization, the bill put the U.S. Senate on record as vindicating the Bush-Cheney line that Iranian proxies are part of a global conspiracy, linking Al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents, Hamas, Hezbollah, and any other enemy the administration wants to conjure up. It made a US attack on Iran just that much more possible. And Clinton's support for the bill confirmed that she has learned little from her earlier Iraq war vote.

But what none of the candidates challenging her have done, as far as I can tell, is use the most succinct and damning description of the vote's implications that's been expressed, when Senator James Webb called it "Dick Cheney's fondest pipe dream." "It could be read as tantamount to a declaration of war," Webb also concluded, and his descriptions go to the heart of the issue, with an eloquence likely to stick in the minds of the voters. But the other candidates have to publicly quote them, and so far they haven't.

Now Jim Webb's not always right, but he knows war, and has thought and written about what leads to it. He's not one to use words casually, so his judgment carries weight. When competing candidates say Hillary's made it easier for Bush and Cheney to even consider the insanity of an attack (or to encourage Israel to do so in their place), it's true and damning. But her supporters can still dismiss this as self-serving exaggeration. Quoting Webb makes her vote harder to dismiss. It goes to the key issue--that once again Hillary empowered a recklessly belligerent administration in their efforts to go to war. Now a US attack is probably less likely since the National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programs in 2003. But Clinton had no way of knowing this when she voted for Kyl-Lieberman, and Bush continues to talk confrontationally in the wake of the report. The fact that Hillary later supported a resolution saying Bush needed Congressional permission to attack is fine and good, but it only partially closes the opportunity for potential catastrophe that she'd just finished helping open.

Reports out of Clinton's campaign suggest that her support for the resolution may actually reflect less a heart-felt political judgment, than a politics of triangulation, an approach where she's driven more by policies she thinks will help her win than those necessarily the best choice for America and the world. As the New York Times explained, "Part of the reason for Mrs. Clinton's vote some of her backers say privately, is that she has already shifted from primary mode, when she needs to guard against critics from the left, to general election mode, when she must guard against critics from the right.... Mrs. Clinton is also solidifying crucial support from the pro-Israel lobby."

As Clinton's once seemingly unassailable lead seriously crumbles, her Iran vote has played a major role in the process. But those raising it as an issue have been withholding the most powerful way of telling it. They need to, in their talks, their ads, and in the arguments they ask their supporters to use. If Democrats really reflect on what it means to potentially enable "Dick Cheney's Fondest Pipe Dream," I believe they'll select a different candidate.






Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email mailto:sympa@lists.onenw.org ">sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

Methuen Progressive is right, I don't like Hilllary, though I'd vote for her if she became the nominee. So I'm doing what I can, which means trying to explain why in a manner that I hope will help people reflect on the issues.

It's not about her personality or some right-wing fantasy of Vince Foster crimes. It's based in the politics she's espoused, and if people haven't clicked and looked at the new CNN poll, where Hillary does badlyl and Edwards beats every Republican, please take a look. If she were a strong progressive swimming upstream that would be one thing, but to make her prime argument "she's electable" when she may be the least electable of top three Democrats is simply blinding our judgment.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/... /




Paul Loeb--Author Soul of a Citizen www.paulloeb.org