Obama wins the presidency

CNN just now projected that Obama will be the 44th president elect of U.S.A. This is a moment millions of Americans - white & colored, rich and poor - awaited for hundreds of years. This sends a message across to the world that America remain resilient as it used to be.

For younger generation, it was about electing a transformational figure for the biggest job. Someone who was riding on a change message. Obama was sticking to his message, inspiring the voters with his electrifying speeches. There is no doubt the real test is ahead of him to make the country stronger and also to restore the leadership of America.

I was lucky to get involved early as everything started early here with Iowa Caucus. The first rally I met Obama in Des Moines downtown hardly had 500 people. Iowans could be proud that they sensed the extra-ordinary abilities Obama demonstrated here and elected him in Democratic primary. And its my turn to treasure the memories of tracing this election so closely.

Waiting for the November 4th

The final debate also ended with no game changers for McCain. The media and polls quickly awarded a slight edge to Obama for his focus on the issues and articulate expression. Its the financial crisis and sluggish economy that really hurting the Republican campaign and McCain seems to miss the big picture . I always favored Mitt Romney who was better suited to handle such tough issues head-on but for some reasons, he never won the republican base. At some point I thought McCain would pick him for his VP ticket but instead he chose Sarah Palin who already proved as a wrong choice for serious voters.

People think Obama could weather through the economic crisis better but I really don't know what's he going to do. All of his programs demands lot of spending - let it be education, health care or building the infrastructure or tax benefits and its unclear where the money is going to come from. Also not clear how the pressure on oil and defense expenses would be reduced in next several years. Some good brains on economics, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernake , are now struggling to halt the slowdown by deploying the monetary tools and even investing the tax payers money in banking corporations. If the stock market is a barometer of growth, then its clear that recession has already hit the US economy. So there are challenges even Obama has not foreseen when he started out for the White house. But then that's what you expect the president to be able to handle.

Now there lives a Bush and his failed policies for everyone to blame on. Even MCCain could console himself that he was a victim of the the failed policy. I am not sure any president would have foreseen a financial crisis of this magnitude that was clearly a product of corporate excess and mis-management. I am going to watch W. tomorrow to see more Bush before he steps down -:)

Historic moment is finally here

A moment wished by a lot of Americans is finally here. First time a black man become the presidential nominee of a major party. Hillary Clinton finally expressed her willingness to endorse him (conditionaly) just now and many super deligates announced their support for Obama

Hillary Clinton's speech yesterday in New York did not have any sign of she conceding rather she demanded that her popularity and the 18 million votes she won should be 'acknowledged'. In other words, she wants something before she endorses Obama - May be VP ticket or something else. People close to her says she is looking at the VP ticket but not sure that's the only thing Clinton mechine wants. Of course there were some negotiations happening between the Clinton, Obama and Democratic circles but as of now there is no sign from Obama's side to suggest that Clinton tops his list of VPs. Obama's St. Paul rally speech did acknowledge Hillary's contributions to America and the tone was reconciling.

Also its interesting to note that how quickly the tone of the campaigns changes. Followers are quickly getting soberer now as they see a possibility of a joint ticket. May be public are fools -Last 16 months both sides fought so hard to defend their candidates and now their leaders preach the need of a great united 'democratic party' and betray them sweetly. May be the independents are the most hurt group as they have nothing to fall back on .

Its not clear whether Hillary Clinton is going to be Obama's VP ticket. I feel that's a possibility as she does bring a lot of value into the up coming race but not sure the trouble she brings outweigh the value. Obama took many decisions unconventionally (conventional wisdom is that Hillary is a tough one to control or manage OR she comes with Bill Clinton baggage etc) , so taking Hillary as a VP would be one such and he will defend it through a nice speech to his followers.

While Hillary Clinton is taking her own sweet time to make a public announcement about her stepping down, everybody is speculating what her future would be. Its quite clear that Obama is under tremendous pressure from all quarters to pick her as a VP. The Clintons also hinted that they are not interested in an unconditional support for the sake of their party. Clintons back in Whitehouse could be a nightmare but its not something Obama cannot manage. Many presidents have made their VPs low profile ( in Case of Clinton Al-Gore ticket, it was a public information that Hillary Clinton acted more like a VP and Al Gore was sidelined many times) but it could attract more resentments from the senior leaders and Clinton loyalists in the future . So the question is why getting into all those trouble since you have an option of not getting into the trouble in the first place.

Wall Street Journal summed it up best:

“There are many experienced Democrats who would make suitable running mates, and for the purposes of governing Mr. Obama needs to pick someone he can work with. Above all, he can't appear to bend to ultimatums from the House of Clinton. This is a test of Mr. Obama's political judgment and toughness. If he can't stand up to Hillary and Bill Clinton, forget about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”

Now what if the VP ticket does not happen ? Hillary could return to Senate for her full time job. Like Ted Kennedy , she could become a wonderful law maker over a period of time. She could also become Governor of a State and wait for her next turn to become president.

Regardless what's goign to happen in the general election, Obama's ascend to the Democratic nominee was in the headlines of newspapers all over the world. Probably that was something people expected from a democracy like America. Obama hardly mentions his minority status in his speeches and the fact is that he is one of the smartest polititian presently around.

Walks and looks like a Duck ..May be its a duck

Clintons are a household name not just in the U.S but probably world over . I still rememebr a lot of the people back in my home town in South India knew these three names ever since Clinton became the President. Internationally, Clinton administration and diplomacy were better rated than many of his predecessors that probably made them believe that Clinton created a legacy - let us call it Clinton legacy to understand better what Clintons are trying to preserve as a family.

Clintons are also known for their divisive politics within the party and handing out favors to the people sided with them. And that also explains why Hillary entered the presidential race as a formidable candidate of Democratic race and and she did not see the 'change' coming until the Iowa results. Until Iowa Bill Clinton and Chelsea maintained a low profile and he was played a low profile while campaigning here in Des Moines Fair grounds. ( I blogged about their grant rally here that time where i got an opportunity to meet both and i also blogged when i met Obama here in Des Moines in a very low profile rally) Also Chelsea, a couple of times, accompanied her mother and never spoke or took a question.

Things changed just before the Super Tuesday during the North Carolina campaigns where Clintons really sensed the strength of Obama campaign and a potential threat. One of the many thing Clintons bragged was his 'First Black President' title and the early polls in North Carolina showed an unfavorable momentum . Next we saw was Clintons trying to win the blacks votes and when that failed try to win the white votes to stop Obama's momentum before Super Tuesday. May be Bill Clinton damaged the image of the campaign in the process among the black voters and then we saw an overwhelming black turnout for Obama. I saw a different Bill Clinton then - not the one I knew as President but the one lot of his democratic colleagues know as a polarising figure.

Pennsylvania and Ohio best validated their appeasing, blue-color worker divisive strategy to win the majority white votes but probably they overplayed that in Indiana and South Carolina and got punished by the same white folks. As i write this, the whole media is wondering why she is not dropping out of the race and a lot of their colleagues are opining that probably she should consider it as there needs to be a 'miracle' to get her nomination through. Also, her campaigning is underfunded with less contribution coming from the people and she is lending from their personal savings.

May be there are two things I could think of why they are in this race even when it is damaging to the party and Obama, the presumptive nominee.

Protecting Clinton legacy and may be continuing it to next levels could be one. When Chelsea , Bill and Hillary actively campaigns, that's one common binding factor. As someone joked, may be they are thinking that they are entitled to White House :) . If she looses out, that's probably the end of Clinton era so there is a good reason to spend from their own savings and wait for some miracle to happen .Chances here are astronomical but none could rule out that .

Secondly, damaging the party and making Obama less electable ( her campaign in West Virginian and Kentucky is nothing but making a statement that Obama cannot win white blue collar workers) might give her a chance in 2012. If McCain is the nominee, its quite reasonable to believe that in this bad economy , his presidency would take hit from all sides and after 4 years that opens a door to Hillary - A much stronger Hillary could then fulfill the white house dream. Same time, Obama loosing to McCain would pretty much end his bid next time.

So there is a reason for her to be in the race. Probably Clintons don't care what damage that creates for party. But we start hearing more from her own supporters that may be the game is over and she should help uniting the party to secure the Whitehouse. There is no better chance for Democratic party but looks like this is not the best chance for Hillary Clinton

Political Hats

Democratic primaries are much more intense now than probably it was before the Ohio/Texas. I see an Obama campaigning and defending his stand just like any other candidate now than riding on his charisma and crowd pulling oratory skills. And the candidates are much more scrutinized on what they speak on stump speeches and its analysed by multiple media channels to give a 360 degree view. Its more intense now because less attention is going into Republicans as MC Cain is their presumptive nominee already and that leaves just two candidates- Clinton and Obama- for the whole media attention. Also it was interesting to watch how media generates content for their own viewers. The campaign trail was less tracked, when Spitzer issue broke and that makes me believe that lot of the media attention to candidates is the way the generate content .

Obama contesting as a normal guy with small tow-halls, bus trips and factory visits throughout Pennsylvania - a state everyone thinks he is going to loose to Hillary -is way different from his earlier campaign tones. That means smaller rallies and less motivational speeches and more focused issue-based discussions. That also showed his campaign's resilience to adapt to campaigning in a different kind of voters and such a move is already paying off as the poll margins between him and Hillary are on a decline. May be he learnt a lesson in Ohio esp. on the whole debate of NAFTA.

Politician wearing different hats to suit the occasion is nothing new. May be the issues like NAFTA are too complex for an average voter to make sense so a politicians will not attempt to explain the whole story. During the Ohio campaign, Obama's economic advisor Austan Goolsbee's assurance to Canadian officials that lot of Obama talks against NAFTA is a political positioning (it was based on a leaked memo with lot of media spin later added to it) was taken up by the Clinton campaign to demonstrate that Obama is just another politician. May be the campaign was successful in sending that message across the voters as we saw Obama was in a defending position then. Hillary slowly strengthened her position against NAFTA, mostly reflecting Obama's earlier position on it ( These candidates borrow heavily from each other's homework -:) ) but then came the Mark Penn's ( Chief strategist of the campaign)meeting to negotiate the the NAFTA in favor of Columbia , a position opposite to Clinton's campaign at that point. So the media view is that probably both these candidates don't mean what they preach and wearing a hat that pleases the voters. Both Ohio and Pennsylvania were the states hurt because of the NAFTA and outsourcing so candidates cannot ignore those. Clinton has a record of favoring it in the past but as many says she distorted her own record recently saying that she raised yellow flag whenever it was discussed and she always differed with Bill Clinton ( who i s a big supporter) .

So the point is politicians wear different hats to match the occasion . Both Obama and Clinton don't mean to alter the current NAFTA or outsourcing policies that have complex business impacts that an ordinary voter may not understand. However it appears that Obama means 'more' than Clinton when they say they are going to review those policies. Also the ever changing political postioning is liekly to hurt Hillary more especially after the 'Snipe Fire' from Bosnia.

Spitzer Effect

I primarily depend on CNN for the campaign trail updates. They have this catch word " Candidates Unfiltered" to say that they intend to provide the most straight forward updates. Ever since Spitzer scandal surfaced, the campaign trail took a back seat . May be because Ohio , Texas and Mississippi are over by then and the Pennsylvania is about six weeks away from the election.

I usually watch Larry King Live and I was surprised by their panelists on the next day of Spitzer confession - An attorney general who cheated his wife and resigned from Ohio, NJ first lady who was cheated by then Governor, a hooker from New Jersey who knows Spitzer like clients close, a cop whose expertise is in busting the prostitution rings and last of all , a celebrity rehabilitation expert. This was an unusual panel then i thought its an 'unfiltered' 360 degree view, as Anderson Coopers went on with it. Well i am not going to make a comment on the media on the direction they are taking but i am curious Mr. Spitzer violated any rule that lawmakers like him helped to create in the first place. And how many thousands of rules one needs to follow to live as a free individual ?

I thought of a Spitzer effect in the political campaign . Now probably everyone is reminded of Clinton infidelity days and since Spitzer endorsed Hillary the whole thing is resonating with the voters who like to talk about such stuff. But the media is playing it low so far.

David Letterman came out with a top 10 Spitzer's excuses for his conduct. The first one was " I thought Bill Clinton legalized this this years ago"

Why I support Obama

Some of the todays email exchanges with my friends made me think why I support Senator Barack Obama over others. After all, the others who remain in the race- Clinton and MC Cain- are liberal enough and carries more weight around in terms of experience.

I think the major reason is a fresh air of thinking coming out of Obama on the pressing issues the U.S faces today. These issues are often not understood by the voting public and seldom the candidates bring them up in their stump speeches. I had opportunity to listen to Obama in person multiple times and at least once in a very closed gathering of 200 people where he went on to discussing his plans in detail. I also met many other presidential candidates, including Clintons, in person in their stump speeches here in Iowa. After the first meeting with Obama, I told Scott, a friend of mine who joined me to hear Obama, that it needs a lot of historic understanding about the economy, health care and washington politcs to understand many issues Obama discussed that day and Scott agreed with me.

My primary concern is protection of democracies around the world and I am against any forms of war that threatens peoples life. I believe a powerful democracy like America plays a big role in protecting democracy and preventing the genocides around the world. So its important for me that America remain strong economically so that they maintain the influence they have in international organizations like UN.

The Democracies around the world are being threatened and the so called pro-business strategies are benefiting the countries like China and as we see now they are aggressively spreading their businesses to Africa and Middle East. Dictators in those countries welcome China and prefer them to US as they will not ask a thing about democracy. Also at domestic front, the pro-business strategies are creating more unemployment - look at Ohio and Detroit and the blue collar worker who are unemployed .

Its true that some businesses here are benefiting a great deal from outsourcing ( IT and Manufacturing). Its also true that the consumers here get goods cheaper than anywhere else. But this model is not economically viable as unemployment means less purchasing power and in this consumer driven economy less demand for goods means a recession. On the other side, the corporations who benefited out of outsourcing shared the wealth with their shareholders and paid millions of dollars as bonus to their executives. A recession would impact the businesses first and the vicious circle starts from there.

I am not in favor of protectionism. The problem specific to the US now is the free trade policies once highly favorable to them started backfiring. Main reason is Chinese pegging the exchange rate of dollar and flooding their goods in the US market. This will slowly destroy the local manufacturing base create more unemployment and less purchasing power. I am in favor of bi-lateral free trade as if thats based on the comparative advantage. Also I should point out here that Americans enjoy a great price advantage now because developing countries compete for dollars and often the manufacturing in such places are done exploiting the labor class. So we are not talking about a free bilateral trade here . The U.S businesses , out of greed, do not ensure that China and other developing nations adhere to the high standards that are maintained in the US.

I am slightly worried about China strengthening its position in international business(I have nothing against China and some of my close friends are from that nation- I just disagree with the Government there as they lack transparency). Its perfectly OK for them to develop economically but there should be some parallels like the US so that interests of international communities are not compromised. The way China creating a new generation economic colonization in Africa, heavy investment in Middle East, large scale investment in Wall Street banks and US treasury bills - All these tell me soon China will have similar influencing power that America enjoys now in UN and other International organizations. The US government is at least transparent to their citizens and that's a great relief.

Also look at the way the health care and insurance companies running their businesses - surely there is a clear lack of Government policies as the corporate greed is undermining the citizens welfare. Primarily the government is a welfare provider to the citizens and laissez-fair , as we see, is benefiting the top rank officials more and not really the ordinary citizens.

Strong democracies like America should not fail because of business greed. Republicans ( read the current leaders clearly lack the vision for the future. There was a time free economy produced fantastic results but that time America was leading the manufacturing and services sectors. Bush and MCain do not understand the economics and made more enemies than friends around the world. Finally a war-lover like MCain is the worst thing that could happen to America.I know from Indian experience that how terrorists are born - you need diplomacy not war to stop them. America's past involvement in Middle East created the every threat America face now and a war probably cannot eliminate that threat. Also, the new ways of fighting- like suicide bombers - are hard to fight back.

Obama seems to understand what the real problems the U.S is facing right now. Whether he has the ability to deliver what he promises is a debatable topic. In case of republicans, they even refuse to accept the required role of government and need of diplomacy to solve the international conflicts and make the country safe for the citizens. As we have seen so far, Obama is a shrewed politician who wants to get to the top of the establishment so that he has the power to deliver on his promises. The way he stood up against Clinton machinery so far definitely tells something about this guy. Its not just the oratory skills, its the dedication of backing up with groundwork and winning against tough opponents is what I bet on.

I found this article in New Yorker months after i wrote this blog. Thought it brilliantly summarised why Obama should be the choice.

The Choice