Blagojevich appointment press conference chaos

Wow. The political theatre that is Rod Blagojevich. The Illinois Governor just held his press conference to announce that he will appoint former State Attorney General Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.

Blagojevich has incredible chuztpah. He spoke at that podium as though he were a celebrity, not notoriously corrupt. The press went NUTS questioning poor Burris and the Governor.

Then, out of nowhere, Burris says he sees Rep. Bobby Rush in the crowd and Rush wades through the crowd to make an impromptu endorsement of Burris. I can only imagine that Blagojevich hopes that creating more circus will give him more breathing room. Its an amazing soap opera he's made of the office.

UPDATE: Wow. The evening news shows are ravenously chasing their tails on this spectacle. Host: "Can Rod Blagojevich DO this???" Pundit A: "Look, Burris is a DECENT GUY!!" Host: "Maybe so but, Pundit B, can Blagojevich DO this???" Pundit B: "They've injected race into the issue!!" Lots of exclamation. Lots.

The First Family and multi-generational living

I was struck and intrigued upon hearing MSNBC's Nora O'Donnell report that Michelle Obama's mother would be moving into the White House with the new First Family.

In fact, Michelle Obama's mother has assisted in much of the child rearing while the Obamas were on the road campaigning for Papa Obama. And what is notable here is that, while the Obamas can certainly afford nanny care, they choose family care.

Yet another indication of the "realness" of President-elect Obama and his family: they can afford professional childcare, would probably appreciate the value of a teacher-nanny, but see more value in incorporating the extended family. The Jolie-Pitt family also went public recently with their multi-generational approach to rearing their burgeoning brood, with Pitt's parents living with the family to assist at the birth of new twins.

In our society, it seems like multi-generational child rearing has been squarely in the conversational domain of religious right-ists and evangelicals. It was resigned to a "family values" issue. In the spirit of taking "family values" away back from the religious right and restoring it to all of us who love our families...

Multi-generational child rearing isn't just free childcare for strapped families. It reinforces the family's own values, traditions, beliefs and customs in a way that no one or two parents alone can quite accomplish. In a culture that homogenizes our kids via television and mass marketing tie-ins - and, don't get me wrong, there's a valid role for a culture that reinforces our sameness and a commonality of language - grandparents are able to change the focus and introduce kids to new activities and hobbies, old family stories, a different voice of authority to deal with, and a reinforcment of what matters to your family.

It seems like a gimme, but its a model we haven't seen very much in our social limelight. It will be fun to see in the White House over the next 4-8 years.

Voting anti-GOP, not pro-Dem

I've long been of the belief that the country's Democratic-leaning pivot this election season can only be seen as a rejection of Republican leadership. I do not think the electorate has somehow found Progressive religion.

I've been telling anyone who cares to listen that the Dems had better not see this election as a mandate giving them "political capital".

The Dems need to walk away from this election seeing it as an opportunity to show the American people what we can do. We need to work not only to make their lives better, but to make Washington work, to avoid grandstanding and divisive politics and restore the better angels of our nature.

I see signs that the Obama campaign is thinking the same way. Take this piece in Chris Cillizza's blog, The Fix. Cillizza reports that the Obama campaign sees Florida as an important symbol that they cannot walk away from, even if they don't need the state for an electoral win. Cillizza reports:

In the last few weeks, Obama has sent his top two field generals -- "Sunny" Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes -- to direct ground operations in the state.

Surrogates for Obama are also flooding the state. Last night, following his 30-minute national informercial, the Illinois senator appeared alongside former President Bill Clinton at a midnight rally in Kissimmee. Then today came the news that former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, will make stops in West Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow to lead early vote rallies.

What does this mean? It means that the Obama campaign is not willing to write Florida and its diverse population off. It means that they feel they need to keep working to show they care about Florida and want to represent Florida. That is the beauty of the 50 state strategy: it backs up Obama's talk about our not being "a red state America or a blue state America, but a United States of America."

Right on.

Axelrod: a look at the image-maker

If you're wondering how it happeded, look no further.  The New Republic's Jason Zengerle has penned this fantastic behind-the-curtain piece on the Obama campaign's chief strategist, David Axelrod, revealing Axelrod's history of political stagecraft and his evolving relationship with the would-be candidate for President of the United States.

Interesting tidbits abound, like Axelrod's lack of forsight and vision when it came to Obama's potential, Obama's persistence in pursuing Axelrod for a lead position on his political team, and Axelrod's role in persuading Obama to aim for the Presidency in 2008.

Most revealing of all may be the amount of strategy that was put into making a black man acceptible to white voters.  It seems that in this campaign Barack Obama's blackness has often almost been beside the point in this contest, especially when compared to predecessors like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.  But, as Zengerle highlights, that air of post-racial, post-partisan politics was indeed well-crafted.  Of Axelrod's work on the 1989 mayoral race of black state senator Michael White:

Axelrod believed the other crucial vehicle for winning his candidate the votes of Cleveland's white residents was what he's called "third-party authentication"--in other words, endorsements from respected individuals or institutions that whites put a lot of stock in. "David felt there almost had to be a permission structure set up for certain white voters to consider a black candidate," explains Ken Snyder, a Democratic consultant and Axelrod protégé . 

Axelrod, it seems, has developed the winning formula for black candidates to grab freely from the white electoral pool:

The self-described "keeper of the message" for Obama's presidential bid has taken the lessons he learned from his mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns and made them cohere into something that approaches a unified theory of how to elect a black candidate--emphasizing biography, using third-party authentication, attacking with an unconventional sideways approach, letting voters connect to the candidate by speaking to them directly in ads, and telling voters that supporting the black candidate puts them on the right side of history.

There are many, many revealing and fascinating bits in the piece.  If you want to know how we got to this moment, read it.

McCain the Socialist/Communist

So who said the following: Barack Obama or John McCain?  

I believe that when you really look at the tax code today, the very wealthy, because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes, really don't pay nearly as much as you think they do when you just look at the percentages. And I think middle-income Americans, working Americans, when the account and payroll taxes, sales taxes, mortgage pay -- all of the taxes that working Americans pay, I think they -- you would think that they also deserve significant relief, in my view...

If you said John McCain you would be CORRECT.  That's the John McCain of 2000 - remember him? - answering a citizen's question on Hardball.

I know.  I know.  Isn't that that pesky "spreading the wealth" that McCain and Palin are up in arms over?  Well, sure!  But this is an election year, and apparently that means McCain's job is to demonize others for things he actually believes in.  

Think that's taken out of context?  To hear McCain say specifically that this is NOT socialism, read the full transcript here.

Thoughts on the Powell endorsement

No doubt - NO doubt - you've heard plenty by now about Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama, but let me point out one thing about that endorsement that you may not have heard about if you didn't see it live.

Mr. Powell made a very lovely point that I think its important for all of us to consider.  It was about the whisper campaign that Barack Obama is "really a Muslim" or a "secret Muslim" or just outright "Muslim" as an email I received stated.  Powell said this:

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

Just give that some thought and remember what is good about America.  You can watch Powell's endorsement in its entirety here.