I don't know if any of you are watching the Democratic Convention, but if you are not, you missed an amazing keynote tonight. It was delivered by a young man from Illinois named Barack Obama. He is a state senator and is running for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois. He is the son of a Kenyan father, and a white mother from Kansas. He was incredible. I actually got goose bumps listening to him. This is a young man to watch. We will all be hearing more from him in the coming years. Jeff
HERE'S ONE ILLINOIS VOTER WHO'S LOOKING FORWARD TO CASTING MY VOTE IN HIS DIRECTION! Sorry for the caps, but John's right. Barrack is a casual and enthusiastic speaker, he has a passion that comes across unquestioned. I have seen him interviewed several times on Chicago news programs and he's just great. Even the Republicans respect him - so much so that they can't find anyone to run against him. I heard him interviewed by the Chicago Public Radio reporter on the way home this evening. She asked him about some poeple speaking of him in the white house in 8 - 12 years. He wouldn't address the question out of humility. He's a straight shooter if ever I've voted for one. This thread might spark a heated political debate, so let me just say that these are my very own humble opinions.
The networks didn't carry the convention tonight, last night they switched over for the big speakers. I didn't think to switch over to someone carrying it until after Obama spoke. The DNC is sure big on the guy, sounds like someone to watch.
I've been listening to the convention on NPR (http://www.weta.org/fm/). I thought Clinton's speech last night was pretty good, but Obama was amazing. When he was done, I found myself thinking that this could be the first black (yes, his mother is white) President of the US. Maybe 12-16 years from now?
I've been watching it as much as possible while packing the last couple of days. When I saw Clinton's speech I longed for the past, but when I saw Obama's speech I couldn't wait for the future. His speech in it's entirety: Obama's Speech on MSNBC Quicktime Obama Speech Real Obama Speech
Unfortunately Danny, as much as I would love to see the speech again, I can't, because in their wisdom, MSNBC (Microsoft) has locked out Mac users from their videos. They are only PC accessible. I really used to like MSNBC.com too. Now the page loads really poorly and the videos don't work. Oh well, I still have CNN. Jeff
o4 tideland bc Port Townsend, Wa Danny, thanks for the link, just watched it, if he ever runs for the office of pres, he's got my vote! Harry
Thanks Danny. I've been hearing a lot about that speech and was sad I missed it. That was really amazing -- the most positive, inspirational speech I've heard in a long time. I feel hopeful again.
It's too bad he's backing the wrong horse because I agree with most of what he said. All he'd have to do is change a couple of the names and maybe a couple of other sentences (like the crack about the vote counting) and he could give the same speech at the Republican Convention. This guy is going places unless he's got some skeletons in the closet.
Son-of-a-bitch is that guy good. I think 8 years for a presidential run is a real possibility...barring any skeletons or major snafus....Man oh man is he good.
check it out here: http://www.c-span.org/ Cspan has it, should work on macs there, I think. It's not MS owned, anyway -m.
IL Here in IL the Republican party is so rocked by scandal, bribery, corruption and kickbacks, and thats just the previous Gov's impact, they cant even field a candidate for the US Senate. Even Ditka, whose politics was described as to the right of Stalin, declined to run. OBama looks unbeatable. If the Dems win in Nov; IL will have a new Dem Senator along with a Dem Pres to help a Dem Gov controlled by a Dem Mayor. Daley will be in heaven.
For the Microsoft Impaired (pretty heavy handed of MS) here's the transcript of the speech on CNN: Obama Speech I imagine that MSNBC has a temporary exclusive for the video and that it should be available elsewhere soon.
Here is a link you can read a brief bio about Obama:http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=17183 I hear the back-and-forth politicking but can't say that I truly listen to it all. But here's what I, living in Illinois, know about Obama. He has been in the Illinois State Senate since 1997 and during his term, the only way to attack him is on his stance politically, with no skeletons. When interviewed, he seems to want to talk about his wife and children as much as politics. When asked, he admits that he wants to stop drug abuse and youngster violence because of his own childhood without a father, chaotic, and dabbling in drugs. And I truly believe that he is honestly passionate when he says that any person in a downtrodden situation directly affects his consciousness. I look back at my childhood and realize how fortunate I was that my parents happened to be friends with a young man running for congress in Southern Indiana's 9th District. He stopped in for dinner on several occasions and hosted us when we toured DC. That bright young man, a guy named Lee Hamilton, taught me about morals and justice and fighting the good fight. I think he's moved on to other things these days. All I'm saying is that from time to time we wonder where all the good ole days went when people were hard working and upstanding. But even though we get bombarded with negative ads and slander, there are still good honest people like that out there. The smarts ones usually stay as far away from politics as possible. But when someone like Obama comes along, you just have to stand back and let the man work.
vote counting Just a follow up. Regarding the vote counting comment, we here in Cook County used the chad style ballots. FL complained about having 250(?) chads per ballot, we had roughly 350. Also, FL complained about not counting 12-15K ballots, while alone in Cook County they rejected 30K ballots in Chicago and 90K in the suburbs (heavily Rep). We now use the chad ballot with an electronic processor so we know that the ballot was processed but not if all the votes we cast were registered by the machine and counted. As a liberal Republican (not an oxymoron) I would encourage everyone, regardless of political stripe, to vote. And as we say here, "Vote early and vote often!".
Just you wait. He has hit the big stage. Some people are going to work like mad to find something, ANYTHING, on him, no matter how small or unrelated and blow it up into character assassination. Muck-raking is not a "lost art". Of course, maybe it is IMPOSSIBLE to find anything because there isn't a tiny hidden shred anywhere. Or, MAYBE, they'll give him a pass because everything seen so far shows him to be an upstanding, possibly with some usual human flaws, but basically decent guy with the smarts and desire to improve this country.
Since I'm convinced that every American needs to see this guy speak, here are links to the Real & Quicktime format: Quicktime Obama Speech Real Obama Speech
