Oprah, Obama and Hope

HyVee Auditorium was packed on Saturday with lot of women flocking in to see Oprah Winfrey in Obama's rally. When i reached an hour earlier than the event start time the hall was pretty much packed. It was -10 degree Celsius here in Des Monies with freezing rain and snow all over but I guess nothing stopped people from showing-up.

Also, this was the most diverse event of any Presidential candidates I have so far attended in Iowa. Thanks to Oprah's popularity.

Oprah is one of the most influential persons esp among women. So this endorsement means taking away a lot women voters from Clinton. Also she is helping Obama to raise funds using her celebrity connections. But as analysts point out, fundraiser is a tip of the iceberg. Her endorsement might give him the boost that he need to catch up with Clinton , nationally.

His speech during the rally was same as JJ dinner. He showed lot of energy and thanked Iowans for paying attention( in other words, helping him to lead the polls in Iowa).

Also Oprah and Obama sell the same central theme. Hope . I guess its an un-resistible one for ordinary people. Something that religions sell for centuries. Probably the caucusing turned more interesting from this Saturday.

Here is a nice article on the rally.

Republicans are taking diversity seriously ?

The recent news in Washington Times suggested that Republican presidential candidates reversing their course and participating in Spanish language debate next month (UNIVISION)aimed at Hispanic voters. Spanish people look at Republicans as a threat as most of them have the agenda of securing the boarder and stopping the illegal immigration. Its not just Hispanic; Blacks and GLBT also in general don't seem to favor republicans this time.

This month's Diversity Inc magazine carry some interesting statistics on Presidential candidate participation on the events/conferences by the organizations that advocate for people of color and GLBT . None of the top Republican candidates attended NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) conference but all top democratic candidates did. Republicans also missed NCLR conference and LOGO debate.

The June 07 issue of the Diversityinc magazine had another report that listed the diversity of the campaign supporting staff of Presidential candidates. Giuliani has 100% white staff, Romney and McCain have only 10% colored staff. However, among democrats , Clinton has 63% colored staff and Obama has 43%. Typically the candidates will have 50+ main staff promoting the campaign and they could be compared with the management in a corporation. A big company with no diversity at management level is a concern and the same is true for voters.

So the republicans accepting to participate in Univision debate is a welcome change especially when their competition(Democrats) are far ahead with matters related to Diversity. Surely they don't want to miss this opportunity but we will have to wait and see how committed they are going to be throughout the campaign.

Obama and J-J Dinner

Barack Obama’s performance yesterday (11th Nov 2007) at J-J Dinner campaign here in Des Moines was on of the excellent he had so far. Probably he could keep this momentum to win the caucus and eventually to win the primary. Des Moines Register’s political analyst Yespen gave the candidate a thumps-up among all democrats spoke at J-J Dinner. Washington Post thought Obama was the most focused and powerful.

It seems the J-J dinner was a turning point for John Kerry and so this successful one could be a game changer for Obama. I loved his speech and the energy with which he delivered it. To quote Yespen “Should he win the Iowa caucuses, Saturday's dinner will be remembered as one of the turning points in his campaign, a point where he laid down the marker and began closing on Clinton, the national frontrunner”.

Nobel Peace Prize and Presidential Elections

With Al Gore’s winning of Nobel prize for peace, the presidential election in the US is again catching attention of the people around the world. The recent statistics suggest that Hillary Clinton leads the democratic field with 51 percent of the votes and even beats Obama by being more preferred among the black democrat voters. She is now thought to be the only ‘winnable’ candidate against Rudi Giuliani.

Barak Obama did make some news in July this year by raising $33 Million, as compared to $27 Millon of Clinton, and he also led one of the polls in South Carolina. However that was nothing compared to Clinton’s leading position in national polls, multiple polls in Nevada, New Hampshire and Iowa. I attended the rallies of both Clinton and Obama and I could gauge that Hillary campaigns are more appealing to a general audience. I still think Obama’s policies are more intensely and practically thought but would take months of education before they are paid attention to, by the ordinary voters. However, the way Obama raised the fund from 350k people as small contributions really speaks a lot about the candidate’s emerging grass-root support. Moreover, it has helped Obama to prove to the public that Clinton is not the ‘inevitable’ democrat nomination. Clinton did outperform Obama in the third quarter but still he managed to raise $20 Million as compared to $27 Million of Clinton. Definitely the funds help the candidates in doing advertisements and Obama needs it more than Clinton.

Both Clinton and Obama are special candidates to me as they both introduce some amount of diversity into the US politics. Clinton as women is a welcome change in American politics. Lot of people acknowledge the fact that America , though a much celebrated democracy, is not yet ready for a women as their president. An average American male voter tends to discount the fact that women could lead a nation. However Clinton never seems to be stressing on this issue much because a lot of females will not support her as they thought she was not a hardliner during the Monica-Clinton issue. But Clinton is obviously more popular, more appealing and she is relatively more experienced with issues she is talking about. In her campaigns, she does put forward a convincing argument to elect her as the next president. In my observation, in terms of her potential, she is an average presidential candidate and might end up the same way George Bush is now.

Obama is obviously has more potential. When you listen to him, you know that he will learn things faster and take a different approach to the American problems. There is a ‘hope’ , as he puts it, around him that we could expect the problems will be addressed in a different way by breaking all the existing rules – something Clinton would never even try to do . Also, he being a black definitely make it more interesting as, if elected, its telling the world that this is an equal opportunity country. Of course it’s a narrower view of the whole diversity issue but its definitely something the rest of the world looking forward to see. However, the recent polls show that black democrats would not vote for Obama – because he is not black enough for them.

So what Al Gore’s Nobel Prize means in this context? If Al Gore decides to contest (he repeatedly declined it) I am pretty sure these two democrat candidates will be soon out of the race. Al Gore brings everything that people are looking for to fill in the vacuum. Popularity, experience and moreover he is a male, white, non-catholic. Al Gore does not require the last three discriminatory or derogatory qualifications to win an election but that will solve the problems of lot of American people, when it comes to choose someone as president.

I would still prefer Obama, if I had a vote :)

Diversity stand among Presidential Candidates

Clintons were here in Des Moines yesterday-this is the first time Bill Clinton appeared with Sen. Hillary to endorse her candidature. The rally was nothing short of a glamourous campaign - may be because of the beautiful summer evening here in Iowa. Vilsak's wife Christie had all praise for Hillary and she also made a silly remark that Hillary is going to stand-up for the people - be it against terrorists or republicans . Well .. i guess that's the way the campaigns are . I was there to see Clintons - particularly curious what all they touch upon among a variety of issues.

Introductory speakers emphasised 'women' factor in Hillary . While concluding his talk , Bill acknowledged a supporter carrying a 'Men for Hillary' poster as if to keep the men folks happy. I noticed that the term diversity was not even mentioned but some parts like 'women' were talked on. Hillary made me feel that she has a 'feel' of some important issues and some independent stand on them.

I listened to Barak Obama when he was in downtown a month ago and the style of the campaign was way different from Hillary's . Not only the fireworks at the end; people turnouts and heavy weight introductory speakers were all missing in Obama's rally. However, he delivered an intimate talk and often talked about issues in details. I guess Hillary still impresses the caucus goers in Iowa and i don't see that changing in next three months for Obama or Edwards. I would like to be proven wrong.

I was just curious to understand how candidates are dealing with the various diversity aspects : like minorities - includes, black, Asian, Hispanic, women, disabled, people with different sex orientation, immigrants . I plan to track their views going forward as

I don't think diversity is a top item in the campaign and i guess it will never be . There are other items like war, health, energy and employment. However the candidate's stand on same sex marriage, affirmative action, issues of disabled and perhaps immigration are seems to impact the campaign and the general perception of the candidate . Today I was surprised to see a news on Sen John McCain's firing half of his staff as he could not raise funds for the campaigns as expected. Report says he got into trouble with supporting the immigration bill but i feel he was already in trouble with his skeptic view on affirmative action program and same sex marriages. Supporting immigration policy need not be viewed as a diversity issue but other two are .

Democrats in general are supportive of the diversity related issues at least in records . Clinton, Edwards and Obama all strongly supports affirmative action and embryonic stem cell research.
Clinton vetoed the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and voted for adding sexual orientation to definition of hate-crimes. She favors the sexual orientation protected by law and don't think its a 'lifestyle' people chooses so supports domestic partnership supports for gay. She strongly thinks abortion is a women's right. Finally she encourages businesses to hire more women and minorities. So i guess she has lot in record to show that she is a pro-diversity .

Edwards and Obama also have the same stand on the issues and the only exception is Obama- he opposes Gay marriages saying America is not ready for it.

When you look at republican side, Guliani appears to be very diversity friendly like the front runner democrats. I guess he is already going through the trouble of being a liberal republican. Mitt Romney opposes stem cell research and gay marriages but strongly recommends diversity at work. Sexual orientation protected by law is a clear no . Fred Thompson has similar views like Romney but McCain looks slightly confused on the the diversity related stands. He would leave the same sex marriage to the states and he is OK with affirmative action for specific programs but not a quota.

I think it would be interesting to research on why the candidates have that particular stand on an issue. Diversity topics are often misunderstood and interpreted conveniently so it might be a worth an investigation.