Des Moines Register: Obama can heal divisions, win hearts and minds

Clinton is smart, hard-working, gutsy and tough enough to absorb all the muck that's come her way. But Obama is simply a better candidate. He's that rarest of leaders, combining roots in white Midwestern America with black Africa, and experience both organizing in barrios and editing the Harvard Law Review. He's got idealism, compassion and intellect. And he lacks the baggage Clinton comes with, including all the controversies that swirled around her husband's White House. Nor is he compromised, as she has been, by the Senate vote that got us into this quagmire in Iraq.

Clinton is likable - and polarizing. But Obama is a uniter whose very life experience promises a new chapter for America.

On major policy issues, there's more uniting this year's Democratic field than separating them. So the choice comes down to who can win, not just in electoral college votes, but in hearts and minds. Who can unite a divided public and excite people's sense of possibilities? That's where Obama leaves the rest of the pack behind.

<snip>

With its harsh ideological agenda and unapologetic cronyism, this administration has torn through our surplus, our civil liberties and our international goodwill. Democrats four years ago squandered the opportunity to take back the White House by nominating someone who represented the same old stuff. What's needed is a candidate who represents this new America, and inspires pride in it as it grows more multicultural by the day, and as our fate becomes more linked to the rest of the world's, whether through trade, terrorism, immigration or global warming.

<snip>

Now is also the time to signal the world that America is not a monolithic dinosaur but dynamic and evolving, harnessing its diversity to enhance its strength. Obama could do that.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/OPINION01/712190340/1036/Opinion

...

REKHA BASU is one of the most senior South Asian journalists in the United States.
She starts work in January 2001 as a columnist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

She was at The Des Moines Register nine years, the first two as an editorial writer, and the last seven as an opinion columnist (her column in the paper was distributed nationwide by Gannett News Service).

Born in New Delhi, Basu spent her early years in India, Libya, Egypt, and Thailand where her parents had United Nations postings, before settling in New York in the 1960s.

She has an M.S. from Columbia University's journalism school, an M.A. in political economy from Goddard-Cambridge Graduate School, and a B.A. in sociology from Brandeis University.

Before becoming a newspaper journalist, she taught political economy to college and graduate students and worked in documentary film and television production in New York. She was an editorial writer at The Des Moines Register and The Daily Gazette in Schenectady, NY before being promoted to a full-time columnist. She has had reporting jobs at a variety of New York state newspapers and the Associated Press, and has had articles or columns published in major North American publications including The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, USA Today and The Nation.




Nuff said.

Obama supporters need to realize that not everyone on the planet will see him as a uniter, or the chosen one who will be able to "fix" everything.

Get use to it. It's a fact.

Nor do I doubt that Obama will not be able to "fix" everything.

But he's still got my support.

This endorsement does make some well-thought-out points to support her conclusion.

Unlike someone above who basically stated that she was not "Born in the Good Ol USA" and "enough said"....

It is amazing how much some of us will sound like Repukes in attacking those who support other Dems. How about a little perspective?

It is her opinion and it is stated as such. It was...DUH....found in the opinion page. Imagine that! Yet I guess the rap on it is that is an OPINION (ie biased).

I guess if she were praising Hillary it would be defended as FACT!

she has a diverse background. And a foreign one at that. Much like Obama had.

DUH.

Besides, I didn't say anything about where she was born. You twisted that.

"Born in New Delhi, Basu spent her early years in India, Libya, Egypt, and Thailand where her parents had United Nations postings, before settling in New York in the 1960s"

I believe you said where she was born.

Why do you think it matters?

Born in the USA! Born in the USA! SaRC

I posted it FROM HER BIO...what didn't you understand? I said it was HER BIO.

Stop arguing with me over stupid shit.

Right, only them dirty furriners would support that no-good Muslim, right?

It it is not the DMR saying this it is one of their editorial writers. It''s a great article.. but the OP title suggest its the DMR reversing its endorsement..... play fair.

:)

And no, I'm not changing the title. It gets people's attention.

that the paper stands behind the statement. It doesn't; this is an opinion piece.

It is normal operating procedure when posting an OP to reference the paper in which the article is published.

This is neither, and as such, crediting the paper in the header is a lie. Unlike with those two classes of articles, the paper does not stand behind this article. For opinion articles, you must credit the author, not the paper.

A paper does not ever stand by anything written in the opinion section; that exists only as a forum in which others may express their views. Crediting an opinion published in a paper to the paper and not to the author is wrong. Doing so deliberately is lying.

Sometimes rules are meant to be broken.

Lighten up.

Just when it is a news Item.

as they are the position of the editorial board. This is an opinion piece, not an editorial.

is then confirmed :dunce:

All hail the Mighty Obama.

As for world peace, I do believe he would best help resore America's image and leadership role in the world.

sorry, but no one has Joe beat in that category. No one.

Joe is a great guy.

Barack Obama -- stalled in the primary polls -- is getting some Old Time Religion, enlisting a slate of gospel acts to join him on a South Carolina barnstorming tour, the NY Times reported last week.

So old-timey, in fact, that he's headlining a black preacher infamous for attacking gay people.

Donnie McClurkin -- a 48-year old unmarried gospel singer and minister who supported Bush in 2004 -- will be featured in Obama's "Embrace the Change" tour, which aims to "engage people of faith."

More like "Embrace the Homophobia," according to Keith Boykin, someone who has been following McClurkin for a while. Boykin paints a picture of a man who is using his own "conversion story" -- McClurkin "wrestled" with his own homosexuality for years, which he then "overcame" -- to attack gays:

It began with McClurkin's 2001 book, Eternal Victim/Eternal Victor, where he explained his 20-year experience with homosexuality, which he said started after he was raped by an uncle.

"Love is pulling you one way and lust is pulling you another and your relationship with Jesus is tearing you," McClurkin told the media. He says that God delivered him from homosexuality, and since that time, he has been counseling adolescent boys that homosexuality is merely a lifestyle choice that can be overcome.

After years of avoiding the issue, McClurkin has come out strong as a leader in the "war" against gays. He now describes churches as places infested with gay predators, and says gay people have a "lying problem."

Commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson says it's time for Obama to ditch McClurkin's too-old-timey message:

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama ripped a page straight from the Bush campaign playbook with his announced upcoming three date barnstorm tour through South Carolina with notorious gay basher, gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. <...>

Obama has hitched his string to McClurkin's high flying gay bash kite in part out of religious belief (he purports to be somewhat of an evangelical), in bigger part because he's falling further and further behind Hillary Clinton with the black vote in South Carolina and everywhere else, and in the biggest part of all because he hopes that what worked for Bush's reelection will work for him. <...>

sold himself as a healer and consensus builder. Legions have bought his pitch, and have shelled out millions to bankroll his campaign. But healing and consensus building does not mean sucking up to someone that publicly boasts that he's in "a war" against gays, and that the aim of his war is to "cure" them. <...>

Obama has spent months telling everyone that he's everything that Bush isn't. He can prove it by saying a resounding no to McClurkin and to gay bashing. He can cancel and repudiate the South Carolina "gospel" tour, and do it now. Note: He didn't.

http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2007/10/obamas-anti-gay-south-carolina-road.asp

or be friendly with any Republicans. DUers will eat his heart out.

We don't like how she ALWAYS SELLS OUT RAAARGH.


Amusingly, we don't see the disconnect.

There has never been a great leader in the history of man that was not "polarizing."

This country is divided. We can hope all we want for a better tomorrow -- or we can elect someone who is prepared and ready to fix the problems this country faces today.

I am encouraged by Obama. I think he's a great guy with a lot of hopeful things to say to this country. But all of the hope and all of the enthusiastic speeches in the world will not fix the deep wounds this country faces post-Bush.

I don't see Barack Obama getting the nomination.
He has not legitimately won a federal office. He won Illinois by default and his competitor was Alan Keyes.

Hillary is tested and ready to take on the Republicans in 2008.

We can do this again, if we'd like -- elect a weak candidate and lose. Kerry was weak and he lost.

Here's to winning in '08 with a winner, Hillary Clinton.

W.

"I don't see Barack Obama getting the nomination.
He has not legitimately won a federal office. He won Illinois by default and his competitor was Alan Keyes."


Wow....now that's interesting.

The Republican incumbent was involved in a sex scandal, giving way to Barack's win. He is still so green when it comes to politics. He is a good guy; no doubt about that. But being a good guy does not equate to winning a National election against a Republican machine which has dominated politics and policy for far far too long.

W.

Kerry was not WEAK....... and Kerry WON !!! No thanks to the Clintons, who stabbed him in the back! All so that Hillary could get "her turn" in '08!! after all , that's the only reason she stayed with Bill after his escapades. He promised her the Presidency!! To think I used to worship the ground they walked on, Geeze was I blind.

I supported Kerry too.

But he seems weak to me. He allowed "Veterans for Truth" to trample all over him. He allowed George Bush to frame the debates of the campaign and never seemed to gain control of the conversation throughout.

Hillary demands attention -- she commands the debate -- and she frames the discussion around her strengths. That is leadership and that is what it takes to win a national election.

Again -- I do like Kerry and I think he came a long way in that campaign. We simply cannot afford another loser.

W.

Basu is who The Nation's Ari Berman calls "the Register's most insightful political columnist".

But of course. ;-)

Thanks, calteacherguy. Nice to have you back. I like this part:



Ain't that the truth?

Obama is a great guy, and he would make an excellent President.. but DMR should just STFU, they are rotten to the core.. and they soil whomever they talk about in a good light.

their treatment of Gravel and Kucinich proves they could not give a shit about Democracy..