From Al Jazeera English, “Misconceptions of Obama Fuel Republican Campaign”

Yet John McCain “categorically repudiates any comments about Obama that are untrue.” Right.

“I didn’t see it the way that it’s being taken. I never connected. It was just food to me. It didn’t mean anything else.” —Diane Fedele, president of the Chaffey Community Republican Women on an illustration she used of Barack Obama on “food stamps.”

Spotted on NPR’s News and Views blog:

The above image was included in a newsletter published this month by California’s Chaffey Community Republican Women, according to NPR.org’s Geoffrey Gardner. As posted on his blog, the president of the organization, Diane Fedele, says she just wanted to deride Obama’s comment that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

So she put him on food stamps? With fried chicken, ribs, watermelon, and the Kool-Aid man? But she doesn’t see it “the way that it’s being taken?” Wow. I really have no words.

And has anyone told this woman that “food stamps” come on debit cards now? Maybe her next illustration will be one of its recipients using their “MassaCard.”

Well it turns out that there are some real Mavericks out there who are none too happy with John McCain and Sarah Palin taking on their brand. Check out Who You Callin’ a Maverick? in the New York Times.

I’ve always wondered what makes Republicans tick. This video doesn’t explain it, but gives us a peek inside their world.

American News Project

White privilege is being able to dump your first wife after she’s disfigured in a car crash so you can take up with a multi-millionaire beauty queen (who you then go on to call the c-word in public) and still be thought of as a man of strong family values, while if you’re black and married for nearly 20 years to the same woman, your family is viewed as un-American and your gestures of affection for each other are called “terrorist fist bumps. — Tim Wise

My favorite angry white man, anti-racist author and activist Tim Wise, laid out a compelling argument in a recent blog on his site, www.timwise.org, about how white privilege has impacted how the presidential and vice-presidential candidates are perceived. Check it out.

Think the shenanigans of 2000 are over? Hardly.

I happened to catch the documentary Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections by filmmaker David Earnhardt, which shows “how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006—and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election.”

Please check out the site, view the trailer, buy the dvd, go to a screening, spread the word, and then get involved. Whatever your party, whomever your candidate of choice, we should agree that “one person, one vote” is the cornerstone of our democracy.

From the description:

UNCOUNTED shares well documented stories about the spine-chilling disregard for the right to vote in America. In Florida, computer programmer Clint Curtis is directed by his boss to create software that will “flip” votes from one candidate to another. In Utah, County Clerk Bruce Funk is locked out of his office for raising questions about security flaws in electronic voting machines. Californian Steve Heller gets convicted of a felony after he leaks secret documents detailing illegal activities committed by a major voting machine company. And Tennessee entrepreneur, Athan Gibbs, finds verifiable voting a hard sell in America and dies before his dream of honest elections can be realized.

(Read from the bottom up)

“John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.” —Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, in his acceptance speech to the DNC

It looks like Barack Obama found his inner piranha. In a speech that went a long way to answer critics’ claims that he’s too soft, the Democratic presidential nominee put some teeth into his soaring rhetoric, challenging John McCain’s and the GOP’s attacks on his message of hope, claims of celebrity, and general empty-suitness.

In fact, the speech played down some of the usual Obama feel-good stuff and filled in all of the so-called holes without losing any of the inspiration. And he threw in a few good zingers as well. One of the most interesting parts of his speech, however, showed what has long made him one of the most unique candidates to seek the presidency.

“We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country,” Obama said. “The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang- violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.  I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.  Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America’s promise—the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.”

As one veteran journalist sitting beside me said, caught off-guard by this passage, he didn’t have to wade into this territory.

But that’s Barack Obama. As much as his speeches are inspirational, they have never been devoid of substance. And wading into risky territory like abortion, same-sex partnerships, gun ownership and yes, race—the one hot-button issue that he didn’t overtly touch upon but didn’t need to—is part of his appeal.

As folks say, you can’t be all things to all people, but tonight, Barack Obama somehow found a way to come awfully close—at least for the Democratic party.

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Michelle and the kids are on the big screen. She changed from a blue dress she was wearing earlier to a beautiful red and black print. As usual, she looks amazing.

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The Colorado Obama guy is back, still trying to get folks to sign up for the text messages to the DNC. Wonder what happened to them showing us the map of which states signed up the most?

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Ramping up to Obama’s acceptance speech, the air is electric (pardon the use of the trite expression). With the flags flying, it’s probably one of the most patriotic displays from of a bunch of Democrats I’ve seen.

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The folks from the American Voices Program all came up and told the stories that I suppose Phil Gramm would call whiney, but boy, were their stories compelling—and pithy. “We need a president who will put Barney Smith before Smith Barney.” Wow. Did that guy write that line himself? If so, somebody get him a job as a copywriter!

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Al Gore obviously is still the man! He received as big an ovation as Bill Clinton did last night.

Why is the election so close?, asks Al Gore, who says, of course, that he knows a thing or two about close elections. It’s “mainly because the forces of the status quo are desperately afraid of the change Barack Obama represents.” Al is probably talking policy, but I’m thinking more about those pictures on the dollar bills.

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It’s Stevie!! But he’s performing that Barack song that I’m not really feeling. He killed it with “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” though!

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Will.i.am is all over this convention. I went to a Black Eyed Peas concert last night (see the Youtube video on the Uptown channel) but he didn’t want to do the Obama speech song at a party. Probably because he wanted to do it here. Very nice, though.

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Hey, where was I for Jennifer Hudson’s National Anthem? Must have been when I went hunting for food.

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The Obama State Director from Colorado has come to the stage asking the audience to text “DNC” and their message support to OBAMA (62262). There’s a map of the US on the jumbo screen, and each state’s star will get bigger the more people text. It’s like a contest to see which state can sign up the most supporters. Wow. Are young folks that gullible?

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The sun is pretty hot in the stands, probably because we’re so close to the sun up here. I should have brought some sunscreen!

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As we’ve heard hundred times, it’s the 45^th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. But today will from now on be known as the day the first African-American accepted the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency of the United States. I’m at Invesco Field to bring the highlights of this historic occasion.

…This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up. How do we give this country back to them?

By following the example of a brave New Yorker , a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad. And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice: If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If they’re shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. — Hillary Clinton in her address to the Democratic National Convention

The message was meant to draw inspiration from the struggle for women’s rights and that of all Americans who persevere against the odds, but somehow Hillary Clinton’s words sounded almost like she was sending a coded message to all her PUMA gals: I have to play nice like a good Democrat, but you don’t. Keep going!

Call me cynical. I know that Hillary’s speech hit a lot of the right notes. She said to her supporters that if they believe in and support the issues she ran for, then vote for Barack Obama, and this time it didn’t look like it pained her to do so. That’s because she gave a speech she could deliver with conviction, the core message of which was: Vote for Barack Obama, because he’s a Democrat and he’s not John McCain.

Based on the strength of her delivery, her speech was effective in getting most people to believe that she did all she could do to support the nominee. But she clearly did not offer a ringing endorsement of the candidate, and I can’t help but wonder what her real agenda is. Once she got to quoting Harriet Tubman—arguably the strongest female figure of the 19th century, the woman who sang spirituals to deliver coded messages and supposedly once threatened to kill a slave who was too frightened to continue a mission to freedom—it sort of felt like the other shoe was about to drop right on top of that oft-mentioned cracked glass ceiling and send 18 million jagged little shards raining on Barack Obama’s head.

Wednesday is the roll call vote, and Clinton’s name will be placed in nomination to honor her supporters and her historic candidacy. Some Obama supporters are grumbling about this, but it has been done before, with, for example, Jesse Jackson and Shirley Chisholm. But this time doesn’t feel like Hillary’s folks will be happy with a symbolic nomination that will celebrate and honor her achievements.

These women are angry, and they’re going to let everyone know it. There has been some rumbling around the Convention and during Tuesday’s Women’s Caucus that many Hillary supporters are trying to get all of her delegates to vote for her during the roll call, rather than stick with an agreed-upon plan to end with New York’s delegates. On Tuesday I overheard one unidentified delegate’s phone conversation in which he apparently shot down someone’s request for him to vote for Hillary: “There are going to be two presidential candidates in this race: John McCain and Barack Obama,” he said. ”I’m not throwing my vote away on a symbolic gesture.” So they’re apparently still trying.

The irony is that if women are really equal, then we need to accept that we can compete and lose just like the next guy, and then keep it moving. Yelling that the other guy didn’t play fair and demanding special consideration of your runner-up status sounds like you really weren’t ready to get in the game. Like the little girl on the playground who begs to play with the big boys, despite the warnings that she might get hurt. Once she does get hurt and starts crying, she expects the boys to stop playing and tend to her. They didn’t want her there in the first place, and now she’s messing up their game ’cause they gotta deal with her.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for putting a woman in the White House. Just picture it: a woman president of the U.S., along with other heads of state like Germany’s Angela Merkel, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, and Michelle Bachelet of Chile. Once that wave starts really taking off, we could really begin to change the world. But let’s not be wusses about it—if you’re ready to play, be ready to lose. Even if you think it’s wrong. Even if you think the game was rigged. That’s something women can learn from men, who have learned this lesson from a lifetime of playing sports. Sometimes the other side doesn’t play fair. Sometimes the officials are biased. Sometimes the rules are broken, and you lose. Oh well. Life goes on. Just ask Al Gore, John Kerry, or Michael Dukakis.

Maybe I’m overanalyzing this. After all, for all of their noise, there aren’t but so many PUMAs out there.  And HIllary is very clear about what role she needs to play now for the good of the party and more importantly, her role in it.  But the message she’s giving her most diehard supporters the quiet cue that if they’re not ready to come on board, that’s just fine with her. And that undercuts the ultimate objective of the Convention: to rally the party behind one candidate and devise a plan for his victory in November.

In yesterday’s blog I wrote that in her speech, Michelle Obama brought out her husband’s “Teddy Bear side.” Well, apparently the Vermont Teddy Bear Company had been thinking the same thing. Today I received an e-mail from the company announcing that its specially designed Obama Bears ($109.95) are on the scene in Denver, and that, according to a Democratic National Convention Committee representative, “The Bears arrived in true Obama style. They had their sleeves rolled up and were ready to work hard.” Sounds kinda like what I said yesterday.

To be fair, the company also has McCain Teddy Bears, though they’re still awaiting their ticket to the Republican Convention in Minneapolis next month.

Perhaps for all the obvious reasons, African-Americans have been better represented at this year’s Democratic National Convention than ever before. The word is that 23% of all delegates this year are African-American, well exceeding our 13% of the general population. 

But what is also striking is the way we’re represented on the podium during this convention. The largely non-televised portion of convention activities begins at 3 p.m. (MDT), well before prime-time coverage, and during this time we’ve seen folks from John Legend performing with the Agape Choir from Culver City, California’s International Spiritual Center, to relatively new faces on the national political scene, like New York Governor David Paterson, the country’s first legally blind governor who spoke of the issues facing Americans with disabilities. Good thing he wasn’t passed over this time, like he was at yesterday’s New York Caucus breakfast. (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/oops-they-forgot-paterson/)

Michigan Congressman John Conyers led the Congressional Black Caucus in a moving memorial tribute to the late Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio who died just last week after suffering an aneurysm. And D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton spoke about “the nation’s oldest unresolved human rights issue”—D.C.’s lack of a voting member of Congress and the need to pass the D.C. Voting Rights Act, which passed in the House but came up three votes short in the Senate. 

David Paterson (photo by David Shankbone)