We Have to Bend It

One thousand four hundred miles later, when my plane touched down in Cleveland, someone near the front said: "Fired Up!" There was a pause, and then a handful of people said: "Ready to Go!" A world away from the convention, the call and refrain started up again. And that's how we made our way into the airport.

I knew, even before I got on the plane, about Sarah Palin. My wife called to tell me, just as I was boarding in Denver. The consensus on the plane seemed to be: Huh? I have to admit, my first reaction was: We just won this thing. After bashing Obama on experience for two months, McCain picks a VP with under two years governing a state with a smaller population than the city of Austin, Texas? She had been elected governor with 110,000 votes; Obama had 90,000 people at his convention speech.

It wasn't until my mother-in-law called, later in the night, that I started to sense something amiss. She owns a business here in Akron, and she has a good pulse of the people in this swing state -- and she was worried. By moring, with these New York Times headlines ("ALASKAN IS McCAIN'S CHOICE; FIRST WOMAN ON G.O.P. TICKET," "A Surprise Pick; First Term Governor, Social Conservative and Mother of 5"; "An Outsider Who Charms"; "A Bold Choice, With Risks") -- I was, too.

NeuroticDemocrat that I am, I quickly sized up McCain and deduced that he was nothing short of a genius. After an early career of spurning the religious right, and a later career of kowtowing to it, he had in one fell swoop locked up -- and most importantly -- thoroughly energized the GOP base. (He's already raised $7 million in the day since the announcement). This, I thought, neutralizes Obama's biggest assest -- the passion gap. Not only that, but McCain laid claim (some say) to the change mantle, and did it in a way that will appeal -- if not to Hillary voters -- than to the one democraphic (white, working class women) that Obama has the toughest time reaching. Her biggest liability -- inexperience -- is one that we can't point out, effectively, given Obama's weakness on the issue (and he's at the top of the ticket). And while Biden should be able to roll her in the VP debate, expectations are absolutely everything in these affairs -- Palin wins by not losing, and Biden loses, big time, if he's perceived as even the slightest bit sexist or condescending.

For a few hours -- on the heels of one of the most compelling, meaningful displays I'd ever witnessed in my life -- I seriously considered changing the name of this blog to DepressedDemocrat.com. I envisioned Obama's ten-point convention bounce evaporating overnight (I'm not sure it hasn't). And we had this thing locked up! I glanced forlornly out our playroom window at the McCain sign recently put up in our neighbor's yard, and knew, in a whole new way, that what my mother had always tried to teach me was utterly, depressingly true: Life, it turns out, isn't fair.

It took me awhile to come around. What finally did it was a discussion with my aunt and uncle in Dayton. They were not simply undeterred -- my uncle was going to an Obama rally near Columbus this afternoon, and my aunt was preparing to volunteer, locally. My uncle pointed out that, historically, VP has very little impact on the presidential race. And, gaining a second wind, I told him that, according to a Rutgers study, gender voting historically mirrors party, not gender. (Democratic women tend to vote Democratic, regardless of whether the Republican is a woman, and vice versa.) Furthermore, I said (I was on a roll), this election is going to turn on the economy -- everyone knows that -- and Palin brings McCain nothing on economics. (Think: He could have picked Carly Fiorino or Meg Whitman.) At best, she brings a rep as an ethical crusader. But McCain already has that rep. He doesn't need it reinforced.

All politics is guesswork though. One thing I've learned over the course of this election -- and I mean this -- is that right now, nobody knows who will win.

Have you peeled yourself up off the floor?

It's true. Even (especially) the pollsters. Nobody, in fact, has any clue at all.

This was brought home to me in dramatic fashion two weeks ago -- the media foaming at the mouth about who Obama would pick as his running mate had reached a fevered pitch -- when a very well-connected friend of mine pulled me aside to tell me that he'd received a call from a Congressman, who told him that he'd been approached by the Obama camp just that day about his interest in the VP slot. It was a serious entreaty, late in the game. What struck me most was that the congressman himself was totally shocked by it -- he himself had no idea he was even in consideration, let alone on anyone's shortlist -- and he had never been mentioned in a single publication anywhere as a possible Obama running mate. (And with all that frothing about who McCain would pick -- think of all the words of conjecture -- did anyone anywhere seriously give Palin a shot?)

So I'm going to leave the politics behind for a moment, and discuss two things that I think are substantive here, as opposed to stylistic (see post: Jewish Values and Going Negative).

1. I think people are missing the boat on the "experience" question. Democrats so far have focused on McCain's lack of judgment in making this choice, which is certainly fair. The pundits seem to be stuck on the genius of the political move -- i.e., that Obama and his camp can't question Palin's inexperience, without reminding everyone of his own. Dan Schnur writes in the NY Times today: "By Monday morning, assume that every Republican in the country who believed that experience was important will no longer think so, and that every Democrat who didn’t think it was a big deal will now decide it is absolutely critical." No, Dan -- that's not what we will decide. We have always been comfortable, more or less, with Obama's experience. Eighteen million of us voted for him. We will, however, understand that McCain's selection of Palin is hypocritical.

Here is what McCain said June 3, from the Times:

“You will hear from my opponent’s campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I’m running for President Bush’s third term,” he said, trying to pre-empt one of the central Democratic strategies of tying Mr. McCain to the unpopular president. “You will hear every policy of the president described as the Bush-McCain policy. Why does Senator Obama believe it’s so important to repeat that idea over and over again? Because he knows it’s very difficult to get Americans to believe something they know is false. So he tries to drum it into your minds by constantly repeating it rather than debate honestly the very different directions he and I would take the country.”

“But the American people didn’t get to know me yesterday, as they are just getting to know Senator Obama,” Mr. McCain said.

As they are just getting to know Obama, dripping with condescension.

Here is what McCain said yesterday, about Palin: "She's not from these parts, and she's not from Washington, but when you get to know her, you're going to be as impressed as I am."

Putting aside the fact that, according to most reports, he had only met her twice (how well could he know her?), and putting aside the fact that America in fact is not just getting to know Obama (he came into the public eye in a major way four years ago, with his convention speech; he has two books on the best seller list, one of which gives his life story, and the other outlines his political philsophy; and he has been running for president in a 24-7 news cycle for 20 months), my question for him would be: "Sen. McCain -- why is it suddenly okay to have someone a hearbeat from the oval office who America needs to 'get to know'?"

The Republican National Committee has launched a Web site, notready08.com, mocking Obama on his experience. "A mile high, an inch deep." The McCain campaign has made every attempt to paint Obama as inexperienced as foreign policy, drawing contrasts between the two candidates at each turn. For McCain to now pick as a running mate someone with decidely less foreign policy experience than Obama, suggests either that he was lying to us before, when he said it was critically important, or, more likely, that he is being a hypocrite: If I need someone with no foreign policy experience to energize my base and give me a shot to win this election, then it's perfectly fine. Is it a risk to America Sen. McCain, or isn't it?

I heard one GOP pundit say yesterday on CNN that most doctors say McCain has at least four years in him, and, after learning at the foot of a master foreign policy wizard for those years, Palin will have plenty of experience. Puh-leeze. What happened to the importance of "Ready on Day 1"? (It was Hillary's slogan initially, but the McCain boosters greedily adopted it.) This suggests to me a new slogan that perhaps the McCain-Palin folks want to employ: Ready on Day 1,460. (Take it -- it's yours. No patent pending.)

2. For months, the McCain camp has argued that Obama is no friend of Israel. They have said, over and over, that the only criterion for friendship with Israel is action, and voting record, over years of service. Pretty words of support, they said, won't cut it. Obama, for his running mate, picked a self-described Zionist. A few hours after the selection of Palin, I spoke to the head of a major Jewish organization. He said that his organization had done a Google search of "Palin" and "Israel" -- and gotten no hits. Zero. Which means that should McCain die in office, we will have a president with no real track-record of support for the Jewish State at all. Two days ago, that was all that mattered to my Israel-first friends. A few minutes ago, my wife emailed on of those folks, asking about her take on Palin. This is a woman who lives and dies for Israel. She wrote back: "I like her."

I hope to have more on the Israel issue later this week.

I have more to say, but it's getting late, so I'll just say this. My cousin, an Obama organizer in Philly, told me today that in response to Palin's selection, more volunteers than ever before have been pouring into his office, offering to help. Another cousin, a feminist who lives in Ann Arbor -- who has never really had an interest in politics or this election -- now finds herself exercised and insluted by McCain's pick (her parents tell me).

By day's end, I've realized that instead of being all NeuroticDemocraty on this one, I can do something. I can act. I've been planning on continuing my involvement in this campaign at the strategic level -- 30,000-feet -- for instance, organizing drives targeting the Jewish community in swing states. (I've been doing this for some time, mainly behind the scenes.) Before I got off the phone with my aunt, she said: "Let me know about your organizing activities in Akron."

I hadn't been planning on getting involved locally. Thanks to Palin -- no more. I'm going to the local office first thing Tuesday morning.

I can't control the pundits and the venting and the polls. But I can roll up my sleeves and get to work. We all can. And I'd urge you -- in response to this cynical, hypocritical play -- to do the same. Join up. Help out. And then come to this blog and write about your experiences. Tell us who you meet, what they say, how you respond. Tell us what it's like out there in the trenches.

Obama is fond of quoting Martin Luther King, who said: "The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice."

People -- we have to bend it.

The Bridge that Led to the Stadium

I'm the NeuroticDemocrat. I picked this nom de guerre not just to be funny, but because it felt like an accurate description of my mental state this election. I'll wake up on a Sunday morning and read Frank Rich and feel vindicated, and calm about Obama's prospects -- almost as if the whole electorate had read Frank Rich -- and then I'll catch a glimpse of a daily poll on a ticker, indicating the race tightening, and my stomach will tighten. I might check my inbox and find some new ridiculous Obama smear, and feel even worse. Then, at night, I might watch Jon Stewart, Tivoed from Friday, and the universe would fall back in place again.

If you've been reading the blog you know -- this week has been no different. And Thursday -- Day Four of the Democratic National Convention -- might well be exhibit A.

We arrived at Mile High Stadium early, around 2:10 local time, and, after waiting about an hour to get through security, we found great club level seats, section 300, with a straight-on view of the stage.

I'd made the mistake of glancing at the New York Times before leaving my hotel, and watching a few minutes of CNN, so I knew that Republicans had already picked up on a description in a Reuters article, and were mocking the stage as “Obamopolis.” I'd heard Amy Holmes have a good guffaw over the fact that, after all the Democrats crying foul about the Obama celebrity ads, Brittany Spears' set designer had in fact help design the stage. I knew, from the lead Times article, that the Obama folks -- even at that late hour -- were still working furiously to get things right: reducing the echo, making Obama seem part of the crowd, instead of high above it.

I'd been worried about the stadium venue for some time. When it was first announced, I wondered: What if it rains. After the GOP (smartly, to be sure), skewered Obama's celebrity, I thought: aren't we playing right into their hands?

Sitting in section 300, I did what the NeuroticDemocrat does best. I worried. I worried for half a day because so many seats, in the sections across from us, were not filled. Why weren't they filled? Were there still people in line outside? I peered across the fifty-yard line not though my own lens, but through Amy Holmes'. I saw the ticker running across the bottom of the CNN screen: Obama fails to fill stadium.

And then there were the columns. They did look pretty gaudy. I think the Obama folks were going for White House -- not the Acropolis -- but still, didn't that, too, play into our opponents’ hands? And the sound -- it was terrible. At one point, someone was speaking, and we couldn't hear a thing. I imaged speaker after speaking, inaudible. The night seemed to be coming on too quickly. I kept checking my watch, and looking across the field. Where are all the people? Let them in.

You wouldn't have known it, looking at me. Maybe because even as I worried, I was thinking about something else. I was thinking about what it was like, being in Denver this week, amidst Democrats of all colors, all ethnicities, all sexual-orientations, from all over the country. I imagine that Denver -- most cities, for that matter -- has never before seen such a rich tableau. And I was thinking about all the people who have come to the stage in support of Obama-Biden, and the many, many folks I'd met, all here for a common purpose, sharing a common goal.

In this regard, today was the week in microcosm.

On my way into the city, I met Nasir, my cab driver, who came to America 14 years ago from Djibouti. He told me about how his friends had phoned him Monday, from East Africa, when they heard a rumor that someone had tried to assassinate Obama (three men had been arrested, though police say they never posed a serious threat). They had heard the news even before Nasir, who was busily driving his cab around Denver. "They are following so close with this election," he said. "A lot of people in the world want change in America, too. They have that same hope."

In the Starbucks, inside the Hyatt Regency, the barista asked a customer what her shirt said.

"Yes We Can Bitches," she said.

The barista laughed. "I like it."

Waiting for the bus to take us to the stadium, a volunteer beseeched us: "People -- please -- hold on to your credentials with your life. People are walking up and tearing them off the lanyards."

A group of delegates from Colorado walked up, and, since there was no real line, stood near the front. Someone asked them to move to the back. "That's fine, we're Democrats," said one woman, with twin donkey images etched on the lenses of her sunglasses. "It's okay. Though I'll never go to the back of the bus. I fought too many years to get to the front."

She raised both hands and slapped another woman ten. "No way, no how, no McCain," the other woman said. It was Hillary Clinton's line. In Denver, all week, it was our mantra.

On the bus, to the stadium, the woman I sat next to told me about the text she had received the night before, from her friend, about Bill Clinton, which said simply: "I like him again."

I was thinking about all these people, sitting in that stadium, as it slowly, slowly began to fill. Rodees setting up for Cheryl Crowe had their friends snap pictures of themselves on stage. One of the end zone sections worked to strike up a wave. On the floor, beach balls bounced from one delegation to the next. And then, up on the giant jumbotron, the Obama campaign posted a message, asking people to text in their comments. Before too long, there was a new kind of ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screens -- message after message from people in the stadium, sometimes just a name and a city.

Raina South Bronx Dream Realized ...
Carole Duncanville, Texas ...
Erica and Klint Tulsa Oklahoma ...
I believe in our country ...
Alison Fargo, ND ...

Bill Richardson brought it. Then Gore. Then Susan Eisenhower, who told America that Obama has the "energy, and more importantly the temperament," to be president. Then came the military generals, and Joe Biden.

And then Roy Gross, a Teamster from Michigan, took the stage -- and the NeuroticDemocrat thought: uh oh, here we go with the ordinary people, the oldest political cliche in the book. Only, these people were anything but ordinary. They were fiery and feisty and brave, unafraid to speak truth to power. And they seemed to be speaking, at least partly, off the cuff.

Monica Early of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio said that she had received an email with all kinds of claims about Barack Obama. When she took it upon herself to check out its claims, she found them false. "I am grateful for that email that tried to scare me," she said. "It brought me here, an ordinary citizen inspired by a leader who told me I can make a difference."

They took the stage, one after another, and told it like they saw it. "Hello, I'm Pam, from Pittsboro, North Carolina," said Pamela Cash-Roper. She told us her story, about how she and her husband had lost health insurance, and then said that she'd been a lifelong Republican -- voted for Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush. "But I can't afford four more years.”

When Barney Smith of Marion, Indiana stood up and said: "We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney," 75,000 people began chanting -- Bar-ney, Bar-ney, Bar-ney -- as if we'd known the guy all our lives.

Your gonna be the greatest prez ever!!! I'm so proud of you. Ciera ...
Obama-Biden 08 YES WE CAN Dayton, Ohio ...
Rebecca, Silver Spring, Md ...
Native American in S. Arizona supports Obama ...

"This is better than a ballgame," said the man a few seats away from me, his dreadlocks tied up in a neat ponytail.

Durbin came on. Then the movie. Obama spoke about how his Mom used to get him up at 4:30 in the morning for his lessons. "If I grumbled, she’d say: 'This is no picnic for me either, buster.' "

The movie ended and Obama came out. You know what he said and how he said it. If you're like me, you thought his words were eloquent, substantive, and transformative. We cheered him. Drowned him out. Time and again, we started cheering before he finished a sentence, and he kept talking, and we kept cheering, even though were couldn't exactly be sure what he'd said. What struck me, though, was less the raucous cheering than the quiet that always followed. 75,000 people, and we hung on his every word. At one point, we heard voices from the skybox above us, and the person was shushed into silence. I put my notebook down, and stopped taking notes.

After the speech, hundreds of us gathered at a DNC party, at the club level of the stadium. Then, thoroughly spent, I left the stadium, found a bus to take me back into town.

On the bus, it was more of the same. Delegates of all stripes, from all over America.

"I'm from Alabama," said one. "Birmingham."

"Huntsville," said another, reaching out his hand.

A delegate from Texas spoke up. Asked a question about a Birmingham politician.

"That was Selma," a woman said.

"Selma, Birmingham, same difference," the Texas delegate said, to laughter.

"I'm from Selma -- historic Selma," the woman said, a new fire in her eyes. "It was Selma -- that bridge -- that got us into this stadium."

I had a vague sense of the bridge she was talking about, but I wasn't totally sure. So when I got back to my hotel room, I looked it up. It was the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named for Edmund Winston Pettus, a confederate brigadier general. The bridge was the site of Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, when armed police officers attacked peaceful civil rights demonstrators.

Just a few hours post convention, and already, I'd taken a few steps across a bridge of my own.

I started writing this blog, in part to help me synthesize all that went on around me this week. And in part, to give friends, family, and colleagues who couldn’t be here a unique perspective on the goings on.

Indeed, something happens when you’re here. Something I’m not sure you get, watching on TV at home. You get the community. You get Nasir and Raina. Carole and Rebecca. Pam Cash-Roper and Barney Smith. Sitting through speech after speech after speech for four days running, you get bored, and then you get something else that’s much bigger. You get that you’re not alone. You knew it before, of course. But being here, you come to know it and feel it in a different way. My sense is, knowing this, feeling it, will make it a little bit easier to shoulder through the dips in the polls; to weather the GOP onslaught that’s coming at us next week; to be a bit more steadfast.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to keep this blog going. So keep checking in every now and then. That will help, too.

A few weeks before the Ohio primary, I was invited to attend a small meeting between Barack Obama and Jewish leaders in northeast Ohio. After the meeting, I sent out an email blast, strongly defending Obama’s stance on Israel. It went viral. Mostly, people who responded to me were thankful that I’d shared my views. For months after, however, I also got scathing emails – usually unsigned – accusing me of crimes against my family, my people. That’s partly why I decided, when starting this blog, to post as NeuroticDemocrat instead of using my name. I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to take more heat for my views.

It was at the DNC party after the convention when I realized something had turned. About an hour into the party, Barack Obama made a surprise appearance, with his wife, and Joe Biden and his wife. “I’m a little speechless,” he began, standing on a stage a few feet away. He spoke about ten minutes to a few hundred supporters. Before leaving, he said: “We’ve got lots of work to do.”

For me, if I’ve learned anything this week, I’ve learned that the work starts with standing up for what you believe in, and, like the people on that bridge in Selma, having the courage of your convictions.

I’m Josh Rolnick, of Akron, Ohio. And I support this message.

Jewish Values and Going Negative

One of the things I have struggled most with throughout this primary campaign is how to square Obama's obvious desire to run a positive, issue-oriented campaign, with the countervailing need in modern day politics to "go negative." It's something I've thought about more and more as the McCain campaign has taken the gloves off -- going after Obama for being an elitist, for being a celebrity; running ads featuring dark images of terrorists with shady voiceovers about Iran, then insinuating that Obama feels Iran is only a "tiny" threat; starting a Web site dedicated to the fact that Obama is "not ready" to be president; using some of Hillary Clinton's own footage for a 3 a.m. ad of their own. Some of these ads may be "fair" -- certainly, a candidate's readiness to be president is an issue -- but there can be no disputing that all of them are "negative." And can there be any doubt, especially if Obama is in the lead, that we will see Rev. Wright ads in the future?

I sat in on a focus group a few months back that was extremely eye-opening. A moderator was asking a group of Jewish swing voters questions about Barack Obama and John McCain -- I watched from the other side of a one-way window, along with a few pollsters. (They knew we were there.) The moderator read a dozen verifiable, true positive statements about Obama. Then the moderator read a dozen verifiable, true negative statements about McCain. When responding to the positive statements (things like: Barack Obama has proposed a $1,000 tax cut for the Middle Class; Barack Obama says the security of Israel is sacrosanct, and he has the support of the American Israel Public Affairs Council), the voters were not uniformly impressed; many questioned the veracity of the statements. When responding to the negative stuff (things like: McCain has said he doesn't know much about the economy; McCain has said he could envision a long-term presence in Iraq, much like what we have in Korea and Japan), the group got totally riled up. Angry. Indignant. Frankly, I did, too. The message I took home with me was a disappointing one: Going negative works. And it works, well.

Yesterday, the National Jewish Democratic Council hosted a square table discussion at the Convention Center downtown, focusing on "Practicing Politics With Jewish Values." The room was packed to overflowing -- in part because it was held next door to the room where Hillary Clinton had just addressed her delegates -- many of whom filtered in after Hillary finished speaking.

I was particularly moved by the arguments made by Steve Rabinowitz, a kippah-wearing veteran of dozens of political campaigns, and former Bill Clinton White House aide, who currently runs the media messaging firm, Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications.

"I'm about very aggressive politics," he began. He went on to say that he sees two kinds of acceptable messages -- positive, and what he called "contrast" ads, where candidates drawn distinctions between themselves and their opponents.

He noted that Judaism prohibits Lashon Harah -- or evil speech against someone else -- citing Leviticus 19:16: "Do not deal basely with your countrymen." Maimonides, he said, has an even tougher standard: you can't tear down your opponent even if what you say is true. The very next line in Leviticus, though, has been interpreted by the sages to mean that we are not to "standy idly by" if the blood of our contrymen is being spilled.

"We have allowance for this in the text," Rabinowitz said, "so we can both be aggressive political campaigners and not feel we are violating our Jewish ethics at the same time."

"For me -- Obama's political and intellectual blood is being spilled." (In particular, participants spoke of the smears against Obama -- that he is a Muslim, for instance, who attended a radical madrassa as a youth.)

After the event, I went up to Rabinowitz and asked him to expound on his argument. Where, I asked, is the line in "contrast" advertising. He said, without hesitation: the personal attack. Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of our Fathers, teaches that "a controversy for heaven's sake has lasting value, while a controvery not for heaven's sake will not endure." "Heaven's sake," in this case, is a controversy about Torah or law -- substance, as opposed to style.

"For me," he said, it means "I can't attack McCain on his age or his temperament, his mental competence, his wealth, his personal-life." But on the issues -- like how to best support Israel -- contrast ads are fair game.

Certainly, though, the McCain side has already hit Obama on his personal life -- noting that he has an aquaintance who was once a member of the Weather Underground, for example, or painting him as a Harvard elitist. This, I said, even as McCain has seven houses, and flies around the country in his wife's corporate jet. I have to admit, I said -- I've felt damn good when Biden has hit McCain for his wealth and extravagent, 30,000-foot life style.

"The biggest sin in politics is hyprocrisy," Rabinowtiz said. "Corruption is bad, but hypocrisy is worse. It you are corrupt, and you campaigned against corruption -- it's worse." (Eliot Spitzer comes to mind.)

"Is pointing out that someone is a hypocrite a personal attack -- even if it's true?" he asked. "That's what I'm still conflicted about."

"Defending Obama is no problem," he said. "Counter-attacking -- that's the dilemma."

I suppose if I'm looking for something definitive, I'm in the wrong religion.

I have to say, though, that I was struck by the fact that we were having this conversation at all at the Democratic National Convention. Dan Shapiro, one of Barack Obama's top liasions to the Jewish community, was in the room for the conversation. After listening to the discussion, he noted the value of "intellectual inquiry"; the value in "acknowledging the gaps in one's knowledge"; the value of "intellectual curiosity" for leadership.

I left with the sense that the Obama campaign will, and should, continue to hold itself to a higher standard --even as it pushes and questions the boundaries -- as this campaign moves into its next phase. The campaign will not -- it can not -- stand idly by. It will draw contrasts, big time.

This work begins in earnest in just a few hours.

Barack Obama is Ready to Lead America

It's 1:17 a.m., and I'm just back from the Pepsi Center, where Barack Obama was nominated to be president, and Joe Biden, vice president. I'm tired, in one way, but in another, more awake then I've felt in a long time.

Today, there was something in the air downtown. An excitement that started building early in the day. You could sense it. It was as if the history of the moment -- the formal nomination of the first black man for president of the United States -- was, at last, eclipsing the cynicism.

Outside the convention center, for several blocks, vendors were doing a brisk trade in Obama merchandise, surrounded by masses of delegates and tourists and gawkers. They sold Obama playing cards with Bush and McCain as the jokers. "Yes We Can" umbrellas. T-shirts with images of Obama's face and slogan after slogan: "Run DNC," "McCan't 2008," "Barack The Vote." Someone shook a tambourine. Someone else sold flashing novelties, beads, hats, and flags. Dozens of folks wore stickers that read: "Make Out Not War."

There was a police presence, leading into the arena, like nothing I've ever seen. Columns of black-clad officers, guns ready, visors raised, standing in the streets, and on black SWAT trucks, ready, word had it, to block thousands of protestors from disturbing the proceedings. Weaving between them, rushing the arena, I felt my heart beat kick up a notch.

I arrived just as Melissa Etheridge was singing her God Bless America medley, which included verses from The Times They are a Changing, Give Peace a Chance, and Born in the USA. Rep. Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war vet, declared: "It is time for Barack Obama," then left the stage to the chorus of "Eye of the Tiger," Rocky Balboa's old anthem.

You just had this sense -- a sense that the Democrats were going to bring it; a sense that all the naysayers were about to be proven wrong. On Monday, we were criticized for not going after McCain hard enough, for "wasting" the day. On Tuesday, when we picked apart McCain -- did not the governor of Montana seem to love every minute he spent chewing out McCain for his nonexistent energy policy? -- we were criticized because Hillary did not exactly say that Obama was "ready" to lead. And today, all the newspaper reports assured us, Clinton was coming into the whole affair angry that he had been asked to speak about foreign affairs. Come to think of it, we were told, he was still furious at Obama, at how he was treated during the campaign. Watch out, we were assured -- because a jilted, angry Clinton will never stay on message.

I don't know. Maybe we didn't believe the hype. Maybe we knew Clinton well enough, after all those years fighting for us -- and fighting against the right-wing that claims superiority in this country -- to know that he would not let Obama down; that he would not let us down. Maybe that's why, when he finally took the stage, we cheered him as if we would never get another chance to cheer him or anyone else, ever again. Maybe we wanted to thank him -- 20,000 of us, on this, Barack Obama's night. To let him know that we don't always buy what we are force-fed on TV. "Stop it," he said -- trying his best to quiet us. "Stop." Be we wouldn't. Every single person stood. Everyone of us waved an American flag. "Settle down," he said, "we gotta get this game started." But we wouldn't. I don't know how long it went on. It felt like a few minutes, the affection the pouring down from the highest bleachers even as it rose from the floor, rolling like thunder. We were telling him something he already knew -- that our country has been hijacked, and that he could help us get it back.

And help, he did. "Last night, Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she is going to do everything she can to elect Barack Obama," he said. "That makes two of us. Actually -- that makes 18 million of us."

What? Where was the ambiguity? The thinly-veiled disdain?

"Everything I have done as president ... has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job."

"A long, hard primary tested and strengthened him. And in his first presidential decision" -- selecting Joe Biden as VP -- "he hit it out of the park ... Barack Obama is ready to lead America."

"Most important of all," he said, "Barack Obama knows America can not be strong abroad unless we are strong at home ... People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

More wild cheers, and the spontaneous refrain: Yes we can ... Yes we can ... Yes we can.

"Yes you can," Clinton said. "But first you have to elect him."

"The Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief," he said. "Sound familar?"

And then he finished, and U2's "Beatiful Day" struck up, and the camera flashed to Hillary and Chelsea, standing, cheering with the rest of us.

It's truly been amazing, being here for all of this. And blogging about it each day afterwards has helped me come to terms with what it all means. Yesterday morning, I wrote about how our best politicians teach us to be brave. As Bill Clinton showed tonight, they teach us something else, too -- something that has to do with the incredible power of burying the hatchet. Of forgiveness, and moving on. We think of our politicians as selfish and egocentric and cynical. Hypocrites, who would do anything for power. But think about the example they set for us when they put personal animosity and rancor aside, and publicly embrace those who have hurt them and cost them the most. Even when it runs against their own interests.

It's healing and unifying and cathartic. Everything they promised us it wouldn't be.

Hillary, Obama, Unity

There's so much that I could say about what happened in Denver yesterday.

I could write about the protestors outside the barricade that rings the Pepsi Center. Mainly anti-choice folks. There weren't that many of them, frankly, but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in shock value. Scrawled in chalk on the sidewalks that we all had to step on to get into our convention were colorful little slogans like: "Obama Murders Babies" and "Obama for Infanticide" and "Obama is Killing the Black Race." There were people with giant plackards showing photographs of aborted late-term babies -- body parts, mangled, bloody baby faces. (I'd seen a truck driving around town earlier with even bigger pictures of the same.) One of the National Jewish Democratic Council staff members that I'm here with had to avert her eyes as we passed -- which I suppose is the point. The fact that Obama -- while pro-choice -- favors restrictions on the kinds of late-term procedures these demonstrators were depicting, did not figure prominently in their messaging.

I could write about the even smaller contingent of John McCain supporters who tried to give me a McCain sticker as I walked toward the convention hall. "You got the wrong guy," I said.

I could write about how the NeuroticDemocrat felt, getting up this morning, after watching two days of barnburning, powerful speeches in a packed arena, given by people who love this country and want to make it more perfect, only to find that in the latest Gallup tracking, McCain has edged ahead of Obama for the first time, 46-44.

I could write about my mother-in-law, who just called me -- her voice, clearly pained -- asking what the situation on the ground was like, with the Hillary supporters. Or my friend, who emailed me, distressed, after watching CNN interview two Hillary supporters, unmoved by her speech last night. "Hillary has handled this whole thing with great dignity," he wrote. But he just couldn't understand her intransigent supporters, one of whom, he wrote, said that "Obama hasn’t asked for her vote yet and she won’t give it to him until he (and his supporters) effectively start showing Hillary the respect that she deserves. This woman felt personally mistreated (she referenced the hate mail that she expected to receive following this interview) by Obama supporters, and essentially her non-vote for Obama is sort of her idea of retribution for all the nasty things that happened to her on the campaign trail."

I could write about how an NJDC board member told me that at a breakfast with Hillary supporters yesterday morning, many were clearly still upset, angry, feeling un-charitable. Or how I have felt, watching all the unseemly, distasteful attempts by Republicans to inject themselves into the fray, hosting a "Happy Hour for Hillary" here Monday night, indicating how they felt Obama had dissed Hillary by passing her over for VP. (These very same Republicans, like Rudy Giuliani, who have made careers out of bashing Hillary and tearing down her feminist supporters. Why isn't the media pointing this out?)

But that's not want I want to write about. What I want to write about is how I felt, leaving the Pepsi Center last night, moments after Hillary Clinton finished her historic speech. Watching her, I couldn't help but think about the person behind the politician. Here was a woman who had lost the very thing she had been fighting for, the thing she wanted most in life, to a rival who, by most accounts, she doesn't like very much. And there she stood, giving him a full-throated endorsement -- doing absolutely everything in her power to mend the divisions in the party, to soothe her own supporters, urging them, with every fiber of her being, to get behind Barack Obama. "You haven't worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership," she said. "No way. No how. No McCain."

Here was a woman putting the causes she has dedicated her life to -- universal health care, equal pay for equal work, a woman's right to choose -- high above her own crushed personal ambitions. I kept thinking, as I watched: This was supposed to be her night.

She was funny ("To the sisters of the traveling pantsuits"), cutting (it's no coincidence McCain and Bush will be together next week in the "Twin Cities"), personal and emotional (putting her hand over her heart when speaking about her desire for "a health care plan that covers every single American"). But most of all, she was imploring, insistent, firm -- more than a plea to her supporters -- a demand: "These are the reasons I ran for president, and these are the reasons I support Barack Obama." This is why you should, too.

I have been an Obama supporter since it was cold. I know there were plenty of pragmatic political reasons Hillary gave the speech she did last night. But what I kept thinking about was her, her courage, in soldiering on, despite such immense personal setback.

It was the same thing that Ted Kenney had done, the night before -- arriving in the Hall -- the Denver Post reported this morning, straight from the University of Colorado Hospital, where he was being treated for a "debilitating bout of kidney stones." "With less than two hours to go before he was supposed to take the stage, Kennedy -- sitting unnoticeded in a room at the University of Colorado Hospital -- told his wife, Victoria, and doctors that he wanted to go to the Pepsi Center and deliver the speech," the paper reported. "One concession to the kidney stones: The speech he gave was about 10 minutes, roughly half the length of an earlier draft."

It was the same thing Al Gore did, eight years ago, when, after winning more votes than anyone in history, he finally conceeded the presidency to Bush. "As for the battle that ends tonight, I do believe, as my father once said, that defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out," Gore said. I cried when he said it. Then I wrote it down on a piece of paper, folded it, and put it in my wallet. It's still there today, but, more importantly, it's in my heart.

Walking out of the Pepsi Center last night, I wasn't thinking about Clinton's supporters, who still insist on giving interviews to CNN about why they support McCain. I wasn't thinking about all the disunity that apparently swirls around this convention, none of which you even sense, sitting in the convention hall.

I was simply feeling thankful -- for Hillary Clinton. I was feeling the kind of deep gratitude that is all to rare in life. I was feeling that because of her words -- and her deeds -- I would be better able to face down my own defeats; to move forward despite my own ample fears.

Standing on a stairwell jam-packed with Democrats, clutching signs to their chests that read "Hillary" and "Obama" and "Unity," I jotted these words in my notebook: "Our best politicians teach us how to be brave."

The GOP may yet steal this election, sowing fear and disharmony. But they can never take our courage away.

He Doesn't Believe It Anyway

Perhaps the most striking, and under-reported, comments of first day of the convention yesterday came not in the Pepsi Center, but a few hours earlier, at the Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Room. That's where the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) hosted an open-to-the public event, before roughly 130 people, analyzing the 2008 Jewish vote.

The main thrust: Most polls show Obama winning 60 to 62 pecent of the Jewish vote nationally, to McCain's 32 percent. A striking number when you consider that Clinton took 80 percent of the Jewish vote in 1992 and 1996 -- though, according to an April Gallup Poll, Obama was drawing only four percent less than Hillary Clinton, who was at 66 percent.

The reason, according to Richard Baehr -- chief political correspondent of the American Thinker and the only avowed McCain supporter on a panel of four -- has less to do with Obama than with the fact that many Jews like John McCain. "McCain is doing better because he's McCain," Baehr said, nothing that his brand, particularly in the Jewish community, remains strong.

(There was some strong dissention on this point from the audience. Florida State Sen. Steve Geller, the minority leader, whose district is in Broward County, and State Sen. Nan Rich, whose district is in Broward and Dade, said that when they speak to Jews in South Florida, it's not McCain that Jews trumpet -- it's fear of Obama, and the Rev. Wright connection.)

You could sense a frustration building in the largely Jewish audience. McCain, who vows to try and overturn Roe v. Wade, and said at Saddleback Church that life begins at conception, has a strong "brand" in the reliably progressive Jewish community? McCain, who has said that the United States is a "Christian nation," and that he would feel more comfortable with a Christian president, has a strong brand among Jews? McCain, who has appeared at the reactionary Christian colleges he once shunned, and who has gone out of his way to court the religious right, is viewed by one-third of Jews in a positive light?

"He's just not as scary to certain people as a lot of other Republicans," asserted panelist Stu Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report.

"He doesn't wake up in the morning thinking about how he can advance the agenda of the religious right," Baehr said, adding that what he thinks about, first and foremost, is national security.

Finally, a member of the NJDC board seemed to burst. Why is it, he asked, that the media is giving McCain a free ride on his staunch right-wing views.

Oh how I wish we could scroll the answers on the CNN ticker for a few days.

"Most journalists know John McCain pretty well," Rothenberg said. "And we know he doesn't care about social issues. He cares only about national security and foreign policy. He doesn't even care about the economy very much. So we give him a free pass."

"Journalists are not inclined to beat up McCain" on these issues, he added. "We think most of the stuff he's saying, he doesn't believe anyway."

Oh, really? The Fourth Estate has decided to play God on this one? Why is it that the press did not similarly conclude that Obama didn't really believe what he was saying on NAFTA, during the Ohio primary, and instead skewered him for days? (I mean come on -- they had the smoking gun on that one -- the Obama aide who allegedly told the Canadians that Obama was just paying lip service to the unions.) How come the press didn't really believe Obama when he said -- completely out of character -- that when some voters get bitter, they turn to God and guns -- and in turn pilloried him, costing him dearly in the Pennsylvania primary. (I mean, all you have to do is read Audacity of Hope to know he is a deeply spiritual, God-fearing Christian who firmly believes in our right to bear arms.)

He doesn't believe it anyway. Is it me with Obama-blinders on, or is this one of the most startling, chutzpahdik comments imaginable? An admission -- by one of the Fourth Estate's most prominent -- that he and others like him perceive a John McCain wink on little issues like, I don't know, a woman's right to choose, contraception, separation of church and state, and so on, and have therefore made a conscious choice not to dwell on his comments, no matter how egregious or out of the mainstream. Is it any wonder that 32 percent of the Jewish electorate supports John McCain?

By the way: Near the end of the session, Baehr said that he doesn't expect McCain to pick a pro-choice running mate like Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman. He called McCain's dropping of those names a "head fake." "It's a win both ways," Baehr explained, adding that it "looks like" McCain is "open-minded" -- "and then they wind up picking someone more predictable, like a Romney."

It's an interesting angle on calculated political deception. Don't expect the mainstream media to write about it any time soon.

That is Why I Love This Country

The best thing about being in the Pepsi Center for the first day of the Democratic National Convention is that you are in a Zone of Silence. That is -- you have no idea what the pundits think. All you have at your disposal are your own thoughts, your own feelings, your own judgments. Instead of thinking what David Gergen tells you to think, you get to decide what to think, yourself. Almost entirely.

Things impressed me today that I'm fairly sure would not have impressed The Best Political Team on Television. Like, for instance, the roughly 500 volunteers in green shirts stationed at all the garbage bins leading up to the arena, to help people sort their trash into three buckets: recycling, composte, and garbage. So, for instance, when I handed over my Starbucks cup, they put the cup holder and cup in the composte bin, and the plastic top in recycling; only a small piece of chocolate went into the trash. Their goal is that less than 10 percent of the trash generated at the convention should go to landfills. Having volunteers stationed at the bins makes that possible. I spent about five minutes getting the story from one of the volunteers, and the whole time, Wolf Blitzer was nowhere in sight.

I was impressed, today, by what felt like a near total Democratic takeover of an entire city. It was kind of like showing up at one of the first round sites for an NCAA tournament game, except that everyone you meet is rooting for your team.

And I was impressed by Denver's humor. The Shag Lounge, on 15th Street, was featuring Discobama 2008. La Boheme Gentelman's Caberet, across from the Convention Center, promised "The Sexiest Democrats Inside," noting, further down its marquee: "Who ever heard of a nice piece of elephant?" That one took me a minute.

I was a bit nervous, heading into the hall. Earlier in the day, at an event that focused on the Jewish vote, Republican Richard Baehr, the chief political correspondent for American Thinker, had blasted Obama for giving Jimmy Carter a prime time speaking spot. Given Carter's third rail status in the Jewish community -- and given Obama's troubles attracting Jewish support -- why, Baehr wanted to know, would Obama give Carter such a plum role on the first day of the convention?

It turns out Obama handled the situation just about perfectly. Carter appeared in a video, specifically focused on Katrina and the aftermath. He then walked out on stage with his wife, waved to the crowd, and walked off stage. In this way, Obama honored one of two living past Democratic presidents -- without giving him the stage. "Yes, Mr. President, you can come, but you can't say anything," said the NJDC board member sitting next to me.

Jesse Jackson Jr. was the first to really bring it. He envisioned Martin Luther King looking down from heaven, and noting that "This is the first political convention in history to take place within site of a mountaintop." He was followed shortly thereafter by Caroline Kennedy, there to introduce the film that introduced her Uncle Ted. It was incredible to see the hall erupt in cheers at Ted Kennedy stumping on film. "Government can function for the common man," Kennedy said. We can "get healthcare for all Americans," he said. "It is time now for a new generation of leadership -- it is time for Barack Obama."

Everything changed -- in the hall, in the convention, possibly in the country -- the moment Ted Kennedy, striken with a brain tumor, walked out on stage. When Kennedy said -- "I pledge that I will be there next January, on the floor of the U.S. Sen ..." -- we cut him off in mid-sentence, drowning him out with cheers: Kennedy ... Kennedy ... Kennedy. He was pledging to be nothing more than alive, and if he could make such a promse -- well, then, every one of us could do the same. And if we could do that, we could do anything. We could elect a black man president of the United States of America.

With Obama, Kennedy said, "we will break the old gridlock." Every American will have "decent, quality health care." "Barack Obama will close the book on the old politics of race, gender, group against group, and straight against gay." "This November," he said, his voice straining, "the torch will be passed again, to a new generation of Americans." And then he stopped, and the band struck up "You're Still the One." Those around me, without benefit of prompting from Candy Crowley, declared the moment nothing short of amazing. Inspirational. It felt like Obama's promise had been renewed.

The lull that followed was all the more stark because of what had come before. Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle. Iowan Candi Schmieder as an "American Voice." Jerry Kellman, who gave Obama his job as a community organizer. Sen. Tom Harken, of Iowa, introducing Republican former Congressman Jim Leach, and then Leach, excoriating his own party for failing to deliver on its own historic promises. "Little is riskier to the national interest than more of the same," Leach said. It was dry, though. In the hall, I found myself hoping this segment had not been televised.

The main thing that struck me, during Sen. Claire McCaskill's speech, was that the Democrats really hadn't gone after McCain in any kind of sustained way. McCaskill did speak about the "risk" of John McCain and the same old GOP policies. I wondered, though, if it was enough.

And then Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, took the stage -- to cheers of "OSU ... OSU ... OSU." (Only later did I learn he was the head basketball coach at Oregon State.) Craig spoke about his little sister with great tenderness and affection. The line that stuck with me was when he said that Michelle was always talking to him about "who was getting picked on in school." She worried about them, he said. She wanted to help.

When Michelle Obama finally spoke, the silence was louder than any I'd ever heard. How many people -- 20,000? -- and each of us, completely absorbed by her words. "Your word is your bond," she said. "You treat people with dignity and repsect even if you don't know them, even if you don't agree with them." As her speech built, she seemed to get more colloquial, starting every third sentence with "You see ..." -- but the impact was startling. It was as if she were getting this story out because she absolutely had to, purging something insider herself in the process, willing us to understand her in a new way. "We have an obligation to fight for the world as it sould be," she said. And we can, in America, she said, adding: "That is why I love this country."

I don't think I've ever seen an ovation quite like the one that followed. You could sense the gratitude, the relief -- Michelle Obama had finally told her story, answering her critics. "That's how we raise them in Illinois," a woman told me, with evident pride.

The moments that followed, with Obama speaking to his daughters and wife via video from Missouri, were wonderful political theater. The older girl wiping a tear away at the sight of her dad. The younger one jubilant, precocious, facing her father's face on screen (not the camera that was, presumably, sending her image back to him), stealing the show in a rush of joyful words. Obama, happy, relaxed, joking, teasing his wife. A private moment with the whole world watching.

I don't know why it hit me the way it did -- maybe because I was in Denver, at the convention, and my own sons and wife were an hour away, in Boulder -- and, in all the convention hoopla, I'd barely seen them in the previous two days. I'd missed their trip that afternoon to the Construction Museum and Butterfly Pavilion, and I knew they'd be leaving Colorado the following morning, while I stayed for the remainer of the convention. It was a moment of triumph, and yet a part of me was empathizing with Obama. Her moment was his moment, and they were half a country apart.

Later that night, in the ESPN Zone, at a party hosted by the Ohio delegation, my zone of silence was rudely pierced. I saw -- on the muted TV on the wall -- the words scroll across the screen, beneath Anderson Cooper: "GOP Response: Dems Waste First Night of Convention." And: "Did Dems Let Bush Off Too Easy?"

It was more than enough to shake the NeuroticDemocrat, to make me wonder about everything I'd just witnessed.

On the ride home to Boulder, I phoned my hotel, to make sure they were holding a room for me for the following day. The clerk, Pierre, told me he would hold my room -- if I could get him credentials for the convention hall. I laughed. I knew I couldn't. But we got to talking. I asked if he'd watched the convention. He had. "Kennedy and Obama -- they just blew it up," he said. "I never cried before, watching anyone speak. But I had tears in my eyes, watching them."

"It was incredible," I told him. "When Michelle Obama spoke, you could have heard a pin drop."

It's now five hours since the convention let out, and I still don't know how the world took it. I just know how Pierre took it.

Thanks, buddy, for letting me check in.

The View From Golda's Balcony

Driving into downtown Denver today, you could sense the excitement building. I drove past a billboard with a drawing of a red, white, and blue donkey on the left, and a Prius on the right. Beneath the donkey it said: "Delegates: 4,439 Strong." Beneath the Toyota it said: "Prius: 1,000,000 Strong." Something tells me the message will find a receptive audience this week.

I was in Denver tonight for a private screening of the film Golda's Balcony, hosted by the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC). The movie was shown at a church, next to the Golda Meir house, on the Auraria Campus downtown. First, some history: Meir was born in Russia and, to avoid pogroms, emigrated to Milwaukee, but after 8th grade, her parents told her should could not go to high school -- she would have to work in the family store -- so she packed a bag and ran away -- to Denver -- to live with her sister and brother-in-law. She stayed for two years, attending North High School, meeting Jewish intellectuals, many of whom were in Denver being treated for tuberculosis. It was the start of her Zionist journey. I found two dollars on the sidewalk outside the house, and slipped it in a glass box, near the front, as a donation. The latest CNN poll on Sunday showed the race in a dead heat. Obama-Biden needs all the karma it can get.

There were about 150 people at the screening. I'd seen the play on Broadway, and been extremely moved. The movie, starring Valerie Harper (of "Rhoda" fame), employed some of the same devices: Harper, as Meir, narrating her story directly, speaking to the audience. In the film, still shots flashed behind Meir -- images that reinforced the dialouge. (For instance, when Meir spoke about the Holocaust, horrifying images of the camps flashed behind her.) Harper played all parts -- including Meir's husband, and her war cabinet. It was jarring, at first -- so different from what we are used to seeing in film. But the story was so compelling, you quickly forgot the devices, and were simply absorbed by the tale.

The most gripping part of the film dramatizes Meir's handling of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Arab armies launched the surprise attack against Israel. Meir is told by Moshe Dayan and other generals, after the first day of fighting, that the Golan front is collapsing -- Israel is down to only a few tanks -- and they are dangerously short of supplies on the Egyptian front. At some point, Meir recognizes, it's no longer a question of maintaining hold of the Sinai: Israel is on the verge of crumbling before the Arab onslaught.

She sits in her office, chain-smoking, unable to eat, unable to sleep. The Zionist vision she has been advancing all of her life -- a political response to the Holocaust, addressing the need for a safe refuge that would allow the ingathering of Jews from around the world -- is slipping away. And Meir, as prime minister, is overseeing its demise. She picks up the phone again and again, pushing her aid to get Henry Kissinger on the line -- to tell President Nixon that Israel needs planes and tanks and supplies to fight back. That its very existence is at stake. Kissinger, it seems, was hard to get on the phone.

At this point, Meir begins another narrative. The story of how Israel found uranium in the Negev, and began working to build a nuclear bomb, miles beneath the desert. How Israel told the world it was building a "desalination plant." And how she stood, on an underground platform high above it all -- monitoring the development of nuclear warheads. She was there so often, the technicians started calling it "Golda's Balcony."

Now, with the Arab armies advancing, Meir had a choice: arm the fighter jets with the nuclear-tipped weapons, or do nothing, and see Israel and all its Jews forced into the sea. "To save the world you created," muses Meir, agonizing over her options, "how many worlds are you entilted to destroy?" She makes the decision to arm the planes, and orders her aid to call Kissinger, to tell him: I have authorized our pilots to hit the "Arab military headquarters" -- her euphemism for Cairo and Damascus.

I'm sitting there, in this soaring church, and something inside me is churning. Not just because of what happened to Israel 25-years ago, not just because of Meir's despair, but, I realize, because of a point my father-in-law has made to me, over the course of this campaign. The one thing, he says, that many pro-Israel, Obama-leaning Jews fear about Barack Obama is this: How will he react, at 3 a.m., if he gets the call that Iran has launched a nuclear (or other) attack on Israel? Would he, in that split second, make the decision to use whatever means necessary -- military and otherwise -- to defend the Jewish state? Obama is a peacemaker, my father-in-law said, a wonderful trait -- a trait he shares -- but what would that mean, when push came to shove, for the Jewish state in a desperate moment of survival?

In 1973, with the threat of a Mideast nuclear war looming, Kissinger finally sent help. Israel received word that planes, tanks, and munitions were on the way, and unloaded on the Egyptians with everything it had. Ariel Sharon crossed the Suez, out-flanking the Egyptian army from behind. It's not a stretch to say the state had been saved by her decision. And yet watching this movie, you can see that making the choice nearly killed her. After it was all over, Kissinger told Meir: "You blackmailed me." Meir responded: "Only blackmail?"

Meir had something in her, something to do with her dedication to her life's cause, that most of us don't have. It cost her her marriage, her husband. At one point, with her daughter and grandkids in a kibbutz near the Egyptian border, Meir talks about how she knew there was a chance that war would break out the next morning, and her daughter's kibbutz would be overrun. She didn't tell her daughter what she knew, though. When war did break out, her daughter demanded to know why her mother hadn't warned her of the danger ahead of time. Meir said: "I couldn't tell everybody -- How could I tell you?"

After the movie, Harper -- in attendance for the screening -- took the stage and received a powerful, extended standing ovation. "Thank you, Denver, for what you did in shaping this magnificent woman, our Golda Meir," she said.

Following a q-and-a, in a square outside the Golda Meir House, the NJDC hosted an event, honoring Jewish members of Congress. Among those present were Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (New York), Sen. Carl Levin (Michigan), and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (New Jersey).

"There's no difference between the candidates on Israel," Sen. Levin said. "They're both strong supporters of Israel." The key to Israel's security, he said, is to "reach out and pull in allies -- and there's no one better to do that than Barack Obama."

"Barack Obama is a fine friend of Israel," said Rep. Nadler. "So is John McCain. So is George Bush, for that matter." Nadler said, however, that Bush's policies have made Israel less safe, by empowering Iran. Then, alluding to the movie we had just seen, he said: "The biggest threat to Israel is Iran. And Barack Obama will follow policies that will avoid two years from now having two choices" -- as Meir had -- "One: Do Nothing; Two: Attack Iran." The latter choice, he said, would be "catastrophic" for Israel -- because Iran would launch 40,000 missiles at Israel from Lebanon. The only way to deal with Iran, he said, is with "very big sticks, and big carrots: If you behave, if you give up your nuclear weapons and ... stop funding Hezbollah, we'll be very nice to you."

Essentially, the Congressmen were making the case that by restoring America as a respected world leader, building strong coalitions with allies, and confronting Iran with strength -- negotiations backed by the threat of military action -- it would force Iran to climb down from its nuclear ledge. Obama would succeed where Bush has failed -- containing Iran -- and thus he would avoid the 3 a.m. phone call that my father-in-law posited.

Standing just a few yards away from the house where Golda Meir's Zionist path began, I couldn't help but think that Meir, herself, would put her faith in the peacemaker, ahead of the warrior. Meir, as Golda's Balcony shows over and over again, had a peacmaker's mentality. Each and every Jewish soldiers' death anguished her. But she was equally anguished by the fact that Jewish young men were put in a position where they had to kill.

Inscribed on a plaque, on the wall of the home where Golda once served tea to Jewish intellectuals, is the following quote from Meir: "A leader who doesn't stutter before he sends his nation into battle, is not fit to be a leader."

Barack Obama would stutter at 3 a.m. That's exactly the point.

And that's why I am voting for him.

The AP Hatchet Job

Feeling bouyant about Obama's choice for VP, I log on to my email account this morning, to see a string of Associated Press headlines and articles slamming Obama:

Analysis: Is Obama Ready for the World's Toughest Job?
Analysis: Biden Pick Shows Lack of Confidence
Biden Pick Draws Democratic Praise, GOP Criticism

Bam! Bam! Bam! As Springsteen sings: shot between the eyes!

And some of you wonder why I post as The NeuroticDemocrat?

(Compare this to how the NY Times objectively portrayed the day's news in the headline: "Obama Adds Foreign Expertise to the Ticket," subhead: "Selection of Biden Puts an Emphasis on Experience")

I know the AP has a long history of abusing Obama in this race, but this trifecta is worth commenting on.

The first article, by Christopher Wills http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080823/ap_on_el_pr/obama_ready_to_lead, begins this way:

"SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Americans picking a president usually turn to people who have run states or armies. The biggest thing Barack Obama has ever run is his own presidential campaign.
The 47-year-old Illinois senator is asking voters to look beyond his thin resume and conclude that he has the wisdom and toughness to be president. The economy, terrorism, health care — he hopes voters will trust him with all that and more.
That's a lot to ask for someone who just a few years ago was an obscure member of the Illinois Legislature."

Questions for Chris: What's the biggest thing John McCain has run? Isn't it conventional wisdom in this country that the presidential campaign you run actually does say something important about the candidate? (Witness the Atlantic Monthly's reporting about how the Clinton candidacy imploded in a tsunami of mismanagement -- which seems to me like perhaps one of the most compelling arguments against her for president.) When has Obama described his own resume as "thin," as you suggest here? And what about it, exactly, is "thin"? Does the community organizing not count? Does his experience as a lawyer, and as a teacher of constitutional law, not count? Does his experience as a state legislator not count? Would you have used the same adjective, in a news analysis, to describe George Bush's military resume vis-a-vis John Kerry's, four years ago? What is your evidence that Obama was "obscure" in the legislature?

And that headline, "Is Obama Ready for the World's Toughest Job?" -- Couldn't that have been ripped directly from the McCain attack machine? Isn't one of their constant refrains: "Is he ready?" The AP's raising it this way emphatically suggests the answer to anyone who is even moderately paying attention: No. He's not ready. (A different writer, who is not pro-McCain, might write a story headlined, for example: "Has Obama's Unique Experience Readied Him for the Presidency?" It could still probe the same themes, but without shredding Obama before the dateline is written.) This was a gift, on what should be one of Obama's days in the spotlight, to the McCain campaign.

Now to the other headline, over the article by Ron Fournier: "Analysis: Biden Pick Shows Lack of Confidence." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080823/ap_on_el_pr/veepstakes_analysis

Here is the key graf: "The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image."

Questions for Ron: Why doesn't the pick say something about the fact that McCain has unleashed a blisteringly string of negative attacks, which runs counter to McCain's image, and that Obama showed good judment and political smarts in picking someone (unlike, say, John Edwards four years ago, or Lieberman eight years ago) who is willing, capable, and adept and fighting back? How does an editor possibly conclude for a headline, even from what you write here, that the pick shows a "lack of confidence"? Could you look at this pick of Biden -- a strong, seasoned foreign policy veteran with years of experience -- and conclude that the pick is illustrative of Obama's supreme confidence: That he is not afraid to have as his right-hand-man one of the titans of foreign affairs. Doesn't it require confidence to invite this kind of heft into your administration? Doesn't it say that Obama is not afraid to be pushed and prodded and challenged? And, taking a step back -- isn't it exactly that kind of challenging that, over time, will lead to better policy-making? Better decisions? Isn't the lack of this kind of back-and-forth one of the biggest reasons that the Bush administration has been such an abject failure? (Even, it seems, in the eyes of John McCain.) Isn't it possible, Ron, that choosing a person who has in fact criticized Obama before, as a running mate, is an expression self-confidence, rather than evidence of its absence?

Reasonable people could have different answers to this question. My point is simply that in asserting these headlines, helping to shape how people receive this pick, on this day, is loaded and slanted and inherently biased in favor of McCain. Let's see what the AP headlines are when McCain makes his pick. Something tells me they won't be nearly as cutting.

There is so much more to say today, but my family is waiting for me at the Pearl St. Mall in downtown Boulder, so I'll just touch on the highlights.

I ended my CNN boycott to watch the day's political news unfold. That didn' t last long. One thing that struck me about the narrative the press is going to push this week is the "Snubbed Clinton" line. Today she was snubbed because she wasn't vetted for VP. And she and Bill were snubbed because Obama didn't call to seek their counsel. I have to say, I have been tremendously impressed with Hillary Clinton, herself, in all of this -- her grace in complimenting Obama's choice, today, and in complimenting Obama. Surely, that was not easy. Indeed, the way she is acquitting herself in all of this makes me feel better and better about her as a presidential candidate in the future, should she ever run again. But the way these nameless supporters of hers are carrying on, behind the scenes -- leaking their frustration anonymously to CNN -- in a way that only serves to undermine the Obama-Biden ticket: It's a shanda. A disgrace. I have a three-year-old who behaves better when he doesn't get what he wants. It's some of the same reckless, near-sighted, ugly behavior that doomed the Clinton campaign from the start.

Speaking of my three-year-old: I need to go find him on Pearl St.

I feel an uptick, today. I feel something shifting for Obama. Something not even the AP, in its infinite wisdom, can crush.

Rocky Mountain Low

Not a good two days for the NeuroticDemocrat.

Started yesterday morning reading, in the Times, that Obama voted against a "Born Alive" bill while in the Illinois Legislature. Anti-abortion advocates were demanding he account for this vote. (An almost identical bill in the U.S. Congress drew wide bipartisan support.) Obama said that in Illinois, it had been paired with another bill that would have criminalized certain abortion procedures. Bill sponsors dispute that. I finished reading the story with a kind of a muddled feeling. I would have had a few followup questions for Obama, starting with: Where do you stand on the bill today? The NeuroticDemocrat has no trouble envisioning the ads this October, skewering Obama for wanting to kill live-born aborted fetuses.

It was a travel day yesterday, as my family left Cleveland for Denver. Mostly, on the trip, I played Shark Attack with my three-and-a-half year old, while my one-and-a-half-year-old climbed over chairs and turned the overhead light on and off over and over, refusing to take his nap. We had a fantastic afternoon in Boulder, the boys running up and down Pearl St., finishing the day at the farmer's market, where the kids found musical heaven in a woman with a bongo drum and an assortment of kid-friendly instruments.

Then came the call from my grandmother, who convinced me, in no time, that Obama has been completely ineffective in his communication strategy, allowing himself to be constantly placed on the defensive by GOP attacks. She noted that Obama was only up one point in the latest poll she had seen.

Today, we spent some time walking around downtown Denver. There are plenty of stores selling Democratic/Obama gear and apparel, though not as many as I would have imagined. One store is selling a shirt with a drawing of Hillary Clinton on it, above the words: "I support Obama." Later in the day, I received an email from a friend, a McCain supporter in Chicago, who told me McCain was up five points in one poll. This, after spending the afternoon in the car with two Denver locals -- both Obama supporters -- who implored me to help them make the case for Obama to their Jewish friends, who remain skeptical. Among their chief concerns: Obama's judgment in staying in Rev. Wright's church for 20 years, and his "flip-flopping" on the issues.

Just before heading to bed, I read an email from a buddy of mine -- a banker from Charlotte, North Carolina -- who says he is "looking to vote for Obama but is so unexcited about that prospect." He made a few criticisms of Obama. He doesn't think Obama's spending plan is fiscally responsible, and he didn't like his answer, at Saddleback Church, when asked to name a "gut-wrenching" decision he'd made in his life (Obama's answer: His decision to oppose the war in Iraq). My friend concluding with this: "*what won him the democratic nomination when he was on a roll was his voice of change / hope / a 'reinvented america' that competes globally and is fair to its citizens --- dude, this is absent in his current campaign and why he is slipping... it also nicely countered the first 2 items above which are weak points he won't overcome..."

I would argue that McCain, with his proposal to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, is the more fiscally irresponsible -- but a Republican like McCain isn't easily tagged that way. I agree with my friend, though, about Obama's answer to the "gut-wrenching" question. McCain's answer (his decision to STAY IN the Vietnamese POW camp, when offered the chance to leave, so as not to hand the enemy a propoganda victory) was much better. It's astounding to me that Obama couldn't come up with something better, too -- he needs to dig deeper, on the personal front, to connect. Think of the people you know and love. Who among them would say that their most gut-wrenching decision was a political stance?

My most gut-wrenching decisions have had to do with the people I love most -- decisions revolving around family conflict; decisions that I spent a great deal of time ruminating on, seeking the counsel, sometimes over a number of conversations, of those I know and love. My decision, when I was 22, to leave America for the first time -- and to quit a great job I had at a newspaper that I loved -- to live in Israel for a year -- that was gut-wrenching. My decision to leave another job four years later, as a reporter for a wire-service, to devote my life to writing fiction -- that was gut-wrenching. Decisions about who to love and who not to love, and what to tell your three-year-old when he asks you what happened to his great-grandfather, who'd recently passed away: these are gut-wrenching, each in their own way.

I know that Obama has faced these, and tougher. I've read his books. Look at the sections in "The Audacity of Hope," when he talks about what it's like being away from his daughters on the campaign trail, or how he feels, speaking to them about death. I know he is real and compassionate and filled with the kind of empathy we want and desperately need in a president.

Why he gave the answer he did, at this stage in the presidential campaign -- that's beyond me.

My Education Regarding Mr. Brooks

It's 8:42 a.m, and, already, this neurotic Democrat has heartburn.
The specific source is David Brooks' column in the NY Times, which confounds me. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
In the column, Brooks argues that McCain essentially tried to run an upstanding, maverick, different-style campaign -- "free of circus antics" -- but he was essentially thwarted by the media and events.
McCain started out with a kibbutzing, free-wheeling style with his reporters on his campaign bus, but because "25-year-old reporters" dared to blog about "every odd comment" of a presidential candidate, he had to stop doing that. (How dare they write about the things a candidate for president says, to reporters, on his campaign bus! How dare the people who disagree with those comments voice their opinions in the public sphere!)
McCain started out with the kind of "improvised campaign events he'd used his entire career," but he was thwarted, essentially because he couldn't "penetrate through the national clutter." (IE, he chose a less genuine campaign approach -- but it's not his fault! The media wasn't writing enough about the genuine McCain! It's Obama's fault! Obama is making McCain un-spontaneous!)
McCain tried "going places other Republicans don't go," but he wasn't able to get any traction. (Should he suddenly be hailed for making a pit-stop in New Orleans, when, as Frank Rich reported Sunday, he was not at all quick to take up the cause in the aftermath of the Hurricane? Should we stop everything and laud the man who wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent for visiting impoverished areas of the South?)
McCain "started with grand ideas about breaking the mold of modern politics," inviting Obama to tour the country with him in join town meetings, but Obama vetoed the idea. (Why should Obama leap to fulfill McCain's self-serving political vision of how the debates should be run? McCain picked the forum most appealling and beneficial to him. Is Brooks so naive as to assume that McCain proposed this format in the interest of "breaking the mold" rather than, partly or mostly, in the interest of gaining on Obama in the polls?)
Here's the key graf: "McCain and his advisers have been compelled to adjust to the hostile environment around them. They have been compelled, at least in their telling, to abandon the campaign they had hoped to run. Now they are running a much more conventional race, the kind McCain himself used to ridicule."
And whose fault is this? Obama's, of course! It's Obama's fault that McCain "now attacks Obama daily." He was getting all the press!
I used to admire and respect David Brooks, even though I didn't always agree with him. I felt he was an honest broker, who would criticize Democrats as well as Republicans who derserved it. He's lost me in this election, though, and this column is a good example of the reason why. Brooks is all about personal, individual responsibility. Yet in this column, he lets McCain off the hook, emotionally, for every last one of his transgressions -- transgressions, by the way, that undermine McCain's central claim that he is the dignified, high-minded, man of character in the race -- because, in the end, as Brooks puts it about McCain's attacks: "It is working."
"A long-shot candidacy now seems entirely plausible."
Can you get more Machiavellian than this? David Brooks -- where is your honor?
Brooks, in his closing graf, holds out hope not that McCain's vicious tone will change during the election, but that, once he's elected, he will miraculously be able to govern as if he had run the style of campaign he'd pledged to run. But, as the Atlantic Monthly's election coverage points out this month -- exactly the opposite is true. If he spends the next 3 months attacking Obama daily, tearing him apart, he might win, but there's no way he'll be able to govern. He's be scorned by the 49 percent of the electorate that didn't vote for him, and outright despised by millions -- and likely facing a Congress with even stronger Democratic majorities.
But he'll be in the White House! Oh Happy Day!
The inescapable message of Brooks' column is that, while it's sad, so sad, McCain has been forced into the gutter. If David Brooks isn't going to hold his candidate to a higher standard; if he's going to be okay with the Paris Hilton celebrity ads, and the Corsi books, and the torrent of self-righteousness that McCain is spewing (Yesterday, McCain told a group of vets at the VFW convention in Orlando: "Both candidates in this election pledge to end this war and bring our troops home. The great difference -- the great difference -- is that I intend to win it first."), then we can forget the next four years, too.
The good news is, since I began writing this post, we have moved 39 minutes closer to election day.

The End is Near

I have been feeling a certain dread about Barack Obama's political prospects since David Brook's column in the New York Times last week, "Where's the Landslide?", which sought to explain why Obama is not up 20 or so points in the national polls. The dread was compounded by the recent article in the Times quoting Democrats, including Ohio Gov. Strickland, saying that Obama needed to do much more to put a fine point on his message about change. I have felt queasy as I've watched Obama's lead evaporating. I have sworn to myself that I would only check the poll updates on Realclearpolitics once every two or so weeks, so as not to be swept up in the daily August polling madness, which everyone I trust tells me doesn't matter one iota anyway.
I was feeling pretty good about Obama yesterday, though, in part because I had just read the Atlantic Monthly's Election issue coverage -- which was so clear-eyed, and so non-hysterical, it made me momentarily believe one could be both passionate about politics and at the same time, clear-eyed and non-hysterical (more on this coverage, later). Also, I had the good fortune of reading Frank Rich's column in the Sunday Times, on a morning flight from Newark to Cleveland.
Rich seemed to be taking Brooks on directly when he wrote: "It seems almost churlish to look at some actual facts. No presidential candidate was breaking the 50 percent mark in mid-August polls in 2004 or 2000. Obama’s average lead of three to four points is marginally larger than both John Kerry’s and Al Gore’s leads then (each was winning by one point in Gallup surveys). Obama is also ahead of Ronald Reagan in mid-August 1980 (40 percent to Jimmy Carter’s 46). At Pollster.com, which aggregates polls and gauges the electoral count, Obama as of Friday stood at 284 electoral votes, McCain at 169. That means McCain could win all 85 electoral votes in current toss-up states and still lose the election."
For a moment, at 30,000 feet, I felt that I could actually breathe again. All was not quite lost for the Democrats in mid-August. Here was a reputable source, albeit a liberal one, implying that Barack Obama may yet have a chance to win the presidency on August 17!
Rich continued:
"So why isn’t Obama romping? The obvious answer — and both the excessively genteel Obama campaign and a too-compliant press bear responsibility for it — is that the public doesn’t know who on earth John McCain is. ... McCain never called for Donald Rumsfeld to be fired and didn’t start criticizing the war plan until late August 2003, nearly four months after 'Mission Accomplished.' By then the growing insurgency was undeniable. On the day Hurricane Katrina hit, McCain laughed it up with the oblivious president at a birthday photo-op in Arizona. McCain didn’t get to New Orleans for another six months and didn’t sharply express public criticism of the Bush response to the calamity until this April, when he traveled to the Gulf Coast in desperate search of election-year pageantry surrounding him with black extras.
McCain long ago embraced the right’s agents of intolerance, even spending months courting the Rev. John Hagee, whose fringe views about Roman Catholics and the Holocaust were known to anyone who can use the Internet."
All was not lost! The press would soon start to cover "The Real McCain." He would be unmasked.
Things started to turn for me, though, shortly after I got home, when first my mother-in-law, and then my rabbi, started worrying me with reports about how Obama had been received at Saddleback Church. Not well, by the press, they told me. But, as my rabbi put it, he thought Obama was so good -- so thoughtful and considerate -- and McCain was so snappy and ideological -- that my rabbi was, for the first time, going to go downtown and join the Obama campaign, if behind the scenes.
By evening, I was flush with a new corona of worry, as TalkingPointsMemo reported, in a one line post, that McCain had drawn even with Obama in the polls, in Ohio. This sent me reeling. Reeling. Could it really be true? A quick search of Realclearpolitics.com confirmed my worst fears. Obama had fallen behind McCain in all the swing states that matter.
Things only got worse when I awoke this morning and read Paul Krugman's column, "It's the Economy Stupor," arguing that Obama was failing at achieving his landslide because he has failed to get traction on economic issues. Krugman was astonished at Obama's flatness when he gave his big economic speech in St. Petersburg. Krugman noted that Obama goes out of his way to avoid "scoring political points" on the economy. "Obama surrogates have shown a similar inclination to go for the capillaries rather than the jugular," he wrote, later adding: "All this makes a stark contrast with the campaign of the last Democrat to make it to the White House." Which of couse was Clinton, with "It's the Economy, Stupid." Krugman got me thinking (which, lately, is saying something in and of itself) -- it's true that Obama hasn't really grabbed the mantle of economic reform; he's tried, but he certainly hasn't succeded. And that should be a no-brainer. How could he even cede one inch of territory on the economy to McCain, who has said he knows little about the subject?
By mid-day today, I'd received an email from a friend that included this line: "As you know, amazingly, incredibly, logic-defyingly, depressingly, the race has tightened to a dead heat. Just typing that makes me want to scream. I have plenty of issues with Obama but I sure as hell don't want to see a McCain administration, it's unthinkable, it's the end."
I turned on CNN tonight in time to see Larry King interviewing two people I'd never seen before, and couldn't pick out of a lineup, opining on the Saddleback Church appearances. The pro-Obama person was struggling to put a positive gloss on things, admitting, thoughtfully (like the candidate himself), that it hadn't been Obama's best day; the pro-McCain person was relentlessly putting his foe on the defensive. The pro-McCain person derided as siliness the notion that McCain hadn't been in a cone of silence. (Obama was questioned first; McCain was supposed to be in a soundproof Green room; turns out he was in his limo, on his way over, as Obama was being questioned.) And then Rick Warren, the pastor, came on, and said, essentially, he didn't know McCain was in the limo, instead of in the "cone of silence," but that basically, McCain couldn't have heard the questions Obama was being asked, because the Secret Service would have reported it. (Since when is it likely that the Secret Service would step up and volunteer information to an obsequious press corps that would make the person they are guarding look like a liar and a cheat?) And then Warren argued that McCain himself SAID he didn't hear anything, and he had to take him at his word. Really? Why?
After saying he could never vote for an atheist (because atheists arrogantly assume we can make it in this world without a little help) for president, Warren then went on to talk about the precious moments during the interview when John McCain actually teared up. Three times! So much for a neutral interviewer. Apparently, he looked into John McCain's eyes, and saw his soul.
I vowed, at that moment, that I would never, ever again watch CNN. Never. I'm over it. I'm done. They can spew their maddening punditry into the electosphere without me.
And I vowed I would do something with my anguish and constantly in-flux election dread.
This blog is, in part, my response.
It's August 19th. 78 days until the election.
The end is not in fact "near." It's not even close. It's eons away. John McCain is gaining in the polls at warp speed. Election Day is coming in slow motion.
There are 1,872 hours until the election.
I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to make it.