At U Street Corridor, Reps Won't Find Rest

Black Broadway
3:40 p.m.: Green line from College Park, Maryland, to Washington, D.C.
Greenbelt metro station: the beginning and end of the Green Line. I am struggling to find an analogy more befitting this day: “The beginning and end.”

The train is almost empty, save a few voices announcing their soon arrival at friends’ or families’, eager to watch as the nation turns the page on a new chapter of American history. It is rainy and gray. I squint my eyes, hoping that might magically turn the gloomy downpour into drops of catharsis. In America, today is the day of reckoning – the “final verdict on eight years [of failed policies],” as Obama likes to call it. Regardless of where one stands, November 4th, 2008, will be a day of either gloom or catharsis – the beginning or end. Some things not even man can control, no matter how hard we try. But today, that won’t keep people from at least trying.

4:00 p.m.: Arrival at the U Street Corridor.
“Black Broadway,” as it was known in its heyday during the first half of the 20th century. The home of legends: Jazz greats Duke Ellington (a D.C. native), Sarah Vaughn, Billy Holiday, and Miles Davis were U Street staples, and, as the story goes, it is where Dr. Martin Luther King grabbed a spoon at Ben’s Chili Bowl after his “I Have a Dream” speech.

After the assassination of Dr. King on April 4th, 1968, U Street erupted into 4 days of riots, destroying businesses, and causing both unemployment and insurance rates to reach for the sky. Meanwhile, the gates to an inferno of drugs and prostitution seemed to open ever wider as investors fled “Black Broadway.” The winds of change first swept through the Corridor with the onset of the 1990s, and today is considered to have just the right degree of luring-but-safe ruggedness to make it hip in a city which, on the surface, tends to get lost in suits, ties and pearly whites.

Politics is for people, by people; a perpetual negotiation of grants – of trust, of power, and of liberty. Win some, lose some. While former D.C. mayor Marion Barry was shunned for being caught smoking crack cocaine at downtown Vista International Hotel in 1990, black Washingtonians assured his 1995 reelection despite a 6 months prison stint: Barry had reached out to the black community, he had created jobs. As gentrification has pushed housing prices up, and the prostitutes down a few blocks, many of the neighborhood’s black residents fear to be pushed away.

U Street is all about politics. And here, as in the rest of country, the people have learned about the proteanism of politics the hard way. And yet, on this rainy day, no one squints. On Black Broadway, everyone is eagerly anticipating the biggest show in town: The 2008 Presidential Election. Judgment Day is here.

The Other Bradley Effect
50-year-old Bradley rests in the rain outside of Garnett Patterson Jr. High School, doubling today as “Precinct 22” polling station. He has just voted for Obama, and has been voting since he was 18.  To him, this election is about redemption – he has said his final prayer in the voting booth, and now it is in God’s hands. We both ponder the scene before us in bemusement: I, 26, white, and ever so European; Bradley, 50, black, and a D.C. native, telling me that the fate of the nation is in the hands of God.

“They could put both in office, for all I care,” says a withered voice behind me. A short man slides by me, and joins Bradley in contained excitement. He is easily in his late-60s, with keen eyes behind tinted glasses in brown plastic rims, gleaming from under a red baseball cap. They shake hands, and nod consentient. “But you just voted, so you must believe there is something you can do, right?” I try. “Well, I’m voting for everybody else; for the future generation. Obama, a black person, that’s historical,” says Bradley as he shakes my hand goodbye.

Captain Crystal
Inside the polling station, a speech-impaired woman greets me warmly over a steaming Styrofoam box. Admittedly, reports of endless lines and long waiting hours had me bracing for a long, busy day “in the field.” “It’s been crazy out here,” Captain Crystal, three-time Precinct Captain, reassures me, as I, to my great surprise, discover a meager line of 6 people waiting to vote – in 5 minutes, it will be down to 2, tops.  “It’s the rain,” the Captain insists, “just give it another hour.”

Crystal boasts how this year, they have done their best to accommodate the large turn-out by providing Optical Scan screens to ensure that impaired voters, too, get to cast their ballot. “Everybody wants to vote,” Captain Crystal tells a small team of local young journalists from Howard University and myself, “so we’ve trained volunteers, line control workers, and hired management to make sure to help them – the elderly, the illiterate, disabled people, and the deaf and blind. We’ll help them vote, but we’re not going to tell them who to vote for.”

Captain Crystal is markedly proud. She and her team has been at the station since 6 a.m., and do not expect to leave Precinct 22 before 10 p.m. She bolts to and fro.

“International man! Over there, that’s the press area,” the Captain demands, navigating me to a green paper patch stretched along one side of the polling room floor. “International man,” that is me. I hear the budding journalists from Howard U giggle behind me, strutting their notebooks and digital cameras. They are not a day over 20. Meanwhile, I try to “capture the moment” with my 2 megapixel camera on my Nokia phone. My digital camera ditched me last weekend at the Beauty Bar in the Big Apple, and has probably been living it up with Cosmo-sipping hipsters ever since.

Precinct 22: No irregularities, no nothing. No 2004 voter suppression scenario, no dirt to dig up. This ship won’t sink on Captain Crystal’s watch.

The Promise
It is rainy still. A stocky, middle-aged man greets me with a gratified smile, and calmly seeks shelter under his umbrella. He lends an air of class to the grayness – no squinting necessary. Trivial exchanges give way to conversation. Meet Robert Harp, self-proclaimed long-time Democrat (with the exception of Gerald Ford in 1974).

“What’s your proudest moment during this election?” I ask him.

“Obama has run a noble campaign. He’s stuck with the issues, and stated them clearly. And he’s provided comprehensive solutions,” Robert begins. “He could’ve played the race-card, but he didn’t,” he continues, signaling a silent nod to the historicity of U Street, and the polling station behind me, where a majority of the voters I have witnessed today are African American.

We discuss John McCain and the early primary debates. “He could have made a good president,” Robert says, “but then he started bolting from one position to another,” reiterating the claims that McCain has appeared “erratic” in the final stages of the campaign. VP pick Palin, the negativity, and then the economic meltdown: “the darkest moments of the campaign.”

My jacket turns a darker shade of grey, as our conversation continues under the drizzling DC sky. From a working-class upbringing in Brooklyn, NY, through making peace with one’s roots, to a successful life in Boston and DC: Robert’s life reaffirms that the appeal of Obama’s story, in many ways, rests in the shared experience of the American people.

Our conversation makes a last stop at the debate over “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” as Palin dubbed him, in what seemed a blatant attempt to invoke fears so effectively aroused during the Red Scare of the 1940s and 50s.

“What about the American Dream? Is that why there’s so much focus on the middle-class?,” I ask. The idea of liberty – the freedom to succeed, and the freedom fail – is sacred to most Americans. “Are Americans afraid that if they take their eyes off the middle-class, they’ll loose sight of the American Dream?”

Robert looks up: “What I’ve learned from this election is that we are one nation. But in the last years, that has been constrained.”

For millions of Americans like Robert, the 2008 Election is not just about reclaiming Washington, but about reclaiming the nation – the promise. Or as Obama would have it: Reclaim the audacity of hope.

I bid Robert farewell, and head down U Street. Rain still. I squint my eyes as I pass a barbershop. Four kids are lined up, getting groomed for the moon landing of our time – a new frontier – while their parents are out trying to guide the hands of God.

By Peter Dahl

[Show as slideshow]

For the Dems, Jerry Gerber and Michael Steltzer, press secretary and chair of Democrats Abroad Berlin respectively, stepped into the ring. Republicans Abroad Germany sent vice-chair Stefan Prystawik and lawyer Paul Kiefer. Sadly, the format ensured that direct exchanges were kept to a minimum. Moderator Michael S. Cullen granted each side amble time for long monologues but little for an actual debate.

As was to be expected, the predominantly German audience in the packed to capacity auditorium was totally in the tank for Obama. Requests by Cullen to refrain from applauding were largely ignored, in fact the audience behaved very Un-German and made constant noises to indicate their support or disapproval.

Both sides mostly stuck to the usual talking points in their remarks, “McCain=Bush”, “Obama voted 94 times to increase taxes” and the like. It only got interesting when topics not discussed at the real debates came up.

The Republicans appeared to be on the defensive most of time. Especially Gerber visibly enjoyed taking shot after shot at John McCain and the Reps. Example: “McCain even seemed to have forgotten the name of current president. I’m older than he is, I know what it’s like”

Prystawik appeared to sense some ungratefulness in the audience given that “Berlin is the city that over the years has profited the most from Republican presidents.” This remark generated the most vivid discussion of the night, with Don Jordon, a journalist who was also on stage, pointing out that while there are a “John F. Kennedy High School, a John F. Kennedy square and a John F. Kennedy-Institute” in Berlin, Ronald Reagan, who “practically abolished the Wall”, is not honored in any way. Needless to say, the crowd was not pleased.

The ensuing question period was roughly equally split between fairly thoughtful questions and painful idiocy. Apparently, the intellectually challenged also feel the need to voice their opinions. The low point was a very German moron who with a pathetic attempt at irony proclaimed, “I’m about as educated as a citizen of the Midwest!”.

A more sensible audience member touched on the importance of race in the campaign, leading both Gerber and Jordan to remark that they believe Obama would have a hard time getting elected to high office in Germany because of his skin color.

All in all, nothing particularly new or earthshaking, but it was nice to see Germans so engaged for a change. Stefan Prystawik told us afterwards it’s because Germans and Americans are “way too similar”. But maybe it was only the wind chill 35°C inside the auditorium.

The debate was part of the series “Wie wählt Amerika?“, organized by the Initiative Amerika Haus Berlin. The series will continue this Wednesday, October 22nd, at 7pm with “Die Außenpolitik des neuen Präsidenten. Was die Welt von Obama oder McCain erwarten darf”,  Hardenbergstraße 22-24, 10623 Berlin.

SPIEGEL: “Change” is the slogan of this year’s presidential election. Do you see any chance for an immediate, tangible change in the United States? Or, to use use Obama’s battle cry: Are you “fired up”?

Chomsky: Not in the least. The European reaction to Obama is a European delusion.

SPIEGEL: But he does say things that Europe has long been waiting for. He talks about the trans-Atlantic partnership, the priority of diplomacy and the reconciling of American society.

Chomsky: That is all rhetoric. Who cares about that? This whole election campaign deals with soaring rhetoric, hope, change, all sorts of things, but not with issues.

He has more to say about the state of American democracy and the 2008 elections. Chomsky touches upon the role religion plays for campaign managers, the narrow spectre of choices voters are given and McCain’s honest suggestion that this election really is about personality and not issues, as the Obama campaign claims. The full interview is here.

Also, this election is increasingly fought out not on the TV screen or in newspaper editorials and op-eds, but on the Internet – which adds another historic element. German journalist Tobias Moorstedt has travelled the US to find out more about this development and the changes, challenges and criticisms digital campaigns evoke. He touches on all of these questions in his new book and in the following interview with tapmag (you can also read the interview in German on my private blog).

tapmag: Your new book is called „Jeffersons Erben“ („Jefferson’s Heirs“). You discuss the influence that the Internet and other new media have on political elections in the US. How can this change be described and what does it mean for voters and candidates?

Tobias Moorstedt: The net brings change to our private life (Instant Messaging), the entertainment industry (MP3) and the economy as a whole (Amazon). Who could imagine getting through university without the help of Wikipedia and Google nowadays? Email, Skype and webcams let us stay in touch with friends across the globe. Why should the new information technologies and the change they bring leave the political system untouched? After all, this system is based on the exchange and processing of information.

In a nutshell: The Internet has made it easy to collect ever more data, to share it with other people and to organize action with those people. Just think about the tedious process of political action fifteen years ago – you had to design a leaflet, produce copies and distribute it. Today, you just write an email to an audience which size is technically infinite.

tapmag: Who are Jefferson’s heirs and what connects them to the ideals of the American Founding Fathers?

Moorstedt: On my journey through the Internet (and the real USA) I met very different people who are all politically active on the net; a student from Texas who isn’t of voting age yet, but is campaigning for Obama in his conservative community nonetheless, a blogger who reaches hundreds of thousands of readers by the click of his mouse, a computer engineer who dreams of programming a new constitution.

Almost none of these net activists invoked Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, but they might be surprised how many beliefs they share with the Founding Fathers. Jefferson called Information the currency of democracy. He tried to find ways to directly include citizens into the decision making process of the government – and thus educate them to be better, more responsible citizens.

Also, I think he would have liked the energy and passion of the bloggers and activists. He once remarked: “I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”

tapmag: Barack Obama was able to reach out to a lot of his younger voters via social networks like Facebook, MySpace and his own platform MyBarackObama.com. Republican Mitt Romney has tried similar tactics in his campaign for the nomination of his party, but failed to build up support online. Are Democratic voters more Internet savvy?

Moorstedt: Democratic voters are on average younger, better educated and have traveled more. There is a sort of digital divide between the two American parties – which doesn’t imply that Americans in the heartland of the US do not use email or have no knowledge of Wi-Fi.

I spoke to Republican strategists in Washington; they think that their candidates have a problem with the open structure of the net. When I present myself online to a certain degree I have to give up control over how people use my picture and statements and what they write on my website.

Republicans have mastered the art of the classical, top-to-bottom campaign in which everyone stays “on message” all the time. They are control freaks. Plus, the Republicans never had a reason to use the net for a long time. They beat their opponents with the old media. Because they had this success with traditional media, they now face an innovation backlog.

tapmag: To which degree did Obama’s success in the primaries depend upon his Internet strategy? How might the Internet help him to succeed in the Presidential election?

Moorstedt: The Internet was a huge advantage for Obama – he understood to use it in a new way, which matched his campaign. Obama was new, young, exciting and different – he was like a funny YouTube video or a young band, a kind of thing that spreads fast in social networks. Obama had hype potential and the Internet is a hype medium – a perfect match.

Additionally, he collected enough donations over the net to successfully compete with the richest and most powerful family of the Democratic Party [Ed.: The Clinton family]. Obama is the first candidate who made the net an integral part of his campaign – it is more than just another channel to send the same message out.

MyBarackObama.com is a network or platform on which local groups can form and organize independently from the campaign central. These volunteers make calls and knock on doors for Obama and have created a “surge on the ground” in the last days.

The Republicans used to have an advantage here; they could draw from the network of churches and organizations in which they were traditionally organized. Obama uses the virtual net to reach out to the reality on the street.

tapmag: How does John McCain – the self-proclaimed Internet-illiterate – use the Internet for his campaign? Does Obama still have a substantial advantage, or are his campaigns well copied and applied by all candidates?

Moorstedt: McCain did say, he is in the process of learning how to use “the Google”. I think that sounds as if he views the search engine as a sort of sovereign oracle, an übermensch creature. Maybe he’s actually one step ahead of us.

Seriously, of course McCain has email groups, social networks, and he also twitters, chats and podcasts. Still, the activity surrounding Obama online is much more substantial. He understands the mentality and the culture of the web far better. We will see how the number of Facebook friends translates into votes.

tapmag: Before Barack Obama, Howard Dean build up a lot of support online for his 2004 bid for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, which did not help him win the nomination. Was the social magnitude of the Internet too small in 2004, so that the enthusiasm of the Dean-followers could not cross the border into mainstream?

Moorstedt: Four years are a long time on the Internet. Not many people had DSL or Wi-Fi in 2004. YouTube and MySpace didn’t exist. Smartphones were the exclusive gadgets of the business elite. A lot of experts believe that 2008 is the first true online election.

It is true that the Dean campaign couldn’t bring the enthusiasm that surrounded Dean online to the voting booth. But, one shouldn’t forget that Dean, once he took the lead in polls and donations, was attacked from all sides with TV ads and negative campaigning.

It is a mistake to assume that only because Dean didn’t win, the Internet has no political magnitude. Joe Trippi, his campaign manager said to me: “It was the first time a candidate lost, but his campaign won.”

tapmag: Is the Internet a battle ground to win over new voters, or do you only preach to the converted online?

Moorstedt: Every politician, every party and every NGO has to advertise him-, her- or itself on the Internet – because that is where their audience increasingly can be found. There are no reliable studies yet whether interactive media like the www can increase political activity of the citizens.

What we know for sure is that Internet users who visit the website of a candidate are very likely to vote for this candidate. That is why the candidate’s websites should be more than virtual copies of the campaign posters and leaflets, but a platform which the members of a political community, that ideally emerges around a candidate, can use to meet and coordinate.

tapmag: Obama claims to have broken the power of the big corporate checks with all the small donations he has collected online. Can the Internet contain the influence of special interest groups?

Moorstedt: Of course Barack Obama receives and accepts donations from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. However, he managed to win over hundreds of thousands of small donors who gave ten dollars one time and fifty the next time. This turned out to be a critical advantage during the primaries against Hillary Clinton.

The pool of potential donors has grown. It might very well be that a politician, who is funded by a lot of small donations, is granted a specific independence because he doesn’t need to take into account the agendas of the unions or big business.

However, it would be financial populism to claim that the corporate lobbyists and special interest groups now have to take a back seat. The more interesting question is: How can the small donors hold politicians and parties accountable? Their line of arguing could be: We supported you. Now we own you!

tapmag: How are your findings comparable to Germany and Europe? Hubertus Heil just twittered from the Democratic National Convention in Denver, will that bring him any closer to the young voters? Which strategies could be implemented, which would fail because of transatlantic differences?

Moorstedt: A journey through the US is, at least with respect to media technology, a trip to the future. The US has a five-year lead against Europe when it comes to the usage of smartphones, Wi-Fi or Pay-TV.

I am confident that the German blogosphere will develop into an important voice in the political debate in the near future. Also the SPD has a social network now, called meinespd.de, which is online but hasn’t really attracted a lot of members yet.

Again, we shouldn’t forget that we have a different political system in Germany than in the US – parliamentary democracy vs. a strong President, multiple party system vs. election coalitions, etc.

But also in Germany the numbers of registered party members are falling. The tendency to bind oneself to a single party for a long time and fill out a membership application is shrinking. Which doesn’t mean that the citizens are becoming more and more egoistic, their engagement just follows another fashion – shorter but also more intense.

tapmag: Which dangers could arise when the election campaigns take place on the Internet? Do you think that a fragmentation and gradual radicalization of the public along political party lines is a threat, as Cass Sunstein describes in his book “Republic.com”?

Moorstedt: There are a lot of threatening scenarios, for example the possibility to anonymously spread false information. The web is an ideal medium for propaganda.  The handling of personal data of voters has also to be controlled tightly.

Sunstein talks about a radical effect of the blog communities. Because blogs like MyDD, Daily Kos or Little Green Footballs only attract activists from one side of the political spectrum, who reinforce each other’s opinions, these opinions and beliefs will become more extreme over time.

It’s an interesting argument. It is true that Internet users can avoid the possibility of cognitive dissonances. When you get your news online you don’t necessarily encounter different opinions or news you don’t want to know about, or photos you don’t want to see, which you would be more likely to come across if you had flicked through a newspaper.

A conservative American who only surfs the websites of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Instapundit will naturally encounter only a very few positive arguments for universal health care; he lives in his own news cosmos. Some experts call this the balkanization of the Internet.

The harsh tone of the discussion and the partisan rhetoric of the politics blogs seem to back this thesis; however, I find the activity of the bloggers rather inspiring than alarming. Even if sometimes the discussion becomes excessive, I prefer the energy of the American bloggers to the apathy of the average voter.

Interview by Kolja Langnese

Tobias Moorstedt: Jeffersons Erben – Wie die digitalen Medien die Politik verändern. Published by Suhrkamp Verlag: edition suhrkamp 2571, 165 pages, Euro 9,00 (ISBN 978-3-518-12571-7).

John McCain

Barack Obama

The wordclouds were created with the help of wordle.net.

No, I am not referring to the announcement by Senator McCain of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Running Mate, which prompted his daughter, Meghan McCain, to gush on her blog about how “incredibly inspired” she was by this choice. One can just hope that when Meghan writes about “the evolution in the role of women as leaders in politics” and how this was “a great moment for young women everywhere” she realizes that if it hadn’t been for another women in politics, this would quite probably never have happened (Maybe someone can pass over those “Herstory” signs left over from the DNC to St. Paul).

Still, let us not miss the historic moment of a female candidate on the Republican ticket – which was in trouble of getting lost amidst all the speculations surrounding Governor Palin’s family. It was announced Monday that one of the Governor’s children, 17-year-old Bristol, is five months pregnant. While pro-life groups rejoced and the McCain campaign blamed the biased media for cruel reporting, this interesting conversation was broadcast on Fox News.

Click here to watch it.

I never thought I’d say this, but I agree with a commentator on Fox. With Kondracke, that is.

Not Part of the Campaign?

The problem I have with what Mr. Kristol, and many others, are saying, is that- of course this is part of the campaign. It is part of the campaign because it enables voters to get a grasp of the candidate, to see her personal side, and because all candidate’s families are inevitably in the spotlight. It is especially strange to request that this situation be left out of coverage if it is then carefully staged into a hug-and-kiss moment at an airport and the convention.

When you become a candidate for the second highest elected office in the nation, you know the media are going to dig out all the dead bodies left anywhere. Now Mrs. Palin’s daughter can open up a newspaper from New York to Chicago to China and Germany and read that she is pregnant. Of course it’s personal. But you know it’ll get out before you accept an offer to become vice president of the United States. So complaining about the mean media, in my eyes, isn’t really in order.

It should not be part of a dirt campaign against the Palin’s, that is right. Now, no one is going to step onto that thin ice.

A Family Like Any Other

An argument raised in favour of the Palins was that this showed them as a normal American family with normal problems, the problems that your neighbor or friend or colleage might have. Of course, it is wonderful to embrace a person with all their mistakes, that stands out of question.

But isn’t it a little discomforting that teenage pregnancy is considered “normal”? Something that can happen to the best of families, and does happen to them all the time? Teenage pregnancy is not some kind of inevitable fate, it is easily avoided by using contraception (or, as some want to believe, by abstinence… I dare the assumption that maybe one percent of the abstinence-only supporters were themselves abstinent in their teenage years. All the abstinence is nice talk until you fall head over heels in love.)

Therefore, the issue that these events raise deserves to be talked about, in a respectful way. It puts an idea into question that McCain has rallied for: Should there be programs to educate teenagers about sex? Apparently, the Senator doesn’t think so. In the light of these events, he might want to reconsider.

McCain’s use of Paris Hilton as an example of someone famous for, well, being famous, is especially slippy as her parents, Kathy and Rick Hilton, have donated $ 4,600 to McCain’s campaign. Talk about a bad choice of image.

Now, Paris Hilton herself has responded to the events, in a rather surprising way.

With a good bid of self-irony, she announces her own bid for President. See for yourself:

Now if that ain’t an election program: solve the energy crisis and paint the White House pink! One has to give it to her, she’s won over McCain on this one. If you want to be sarcastic, better now how to.

On second thought, it says something troubling about this years’ campaign that Paris Hilton is suddenly part of it.

Here’s what fills the calendars of both John McCain and Barack Obama.

Aug. 1- Democratic national platform hearing in Cleveland

Aug. 4- Barack Obama’s 47th birthday

Aug. 8- Summer Olympics opening ceremonies in Beijing

Aug. 16- Obama and John McCain at a forum hosted by evangelical leader Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.

Aug. 25- Democratic convention opens in Denver

Aug. 28- Obama accepts Democratic nomination at Invesco Field at Mile High

Aug. 29- McCain’s 72nd birthday

Sept. 1- Republican convention opens in St. Paul

Sept. 4- McCain accepts Republican nomination at Xcel Energy Center

Sept. 11- Seventh anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks

Sept. 12- Values Voter Summit opens in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the
conservative Family Research Council

Sept. 15– By week’s end, the last of the additional U.S. combat forces deployed to Iraq last year are scheduled to have been withdrawn. If additional forces are pulled home or repositioned to Afghanisten, a heavy debate about Obama’s stance on the surge is likely to start.

Sept. 18- Google/YouTube candidates’ forum in New Orleans

Sept. 26- First presidential debate sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, at the University of Mississippi in Oxford; on domestic policy

Oct. 1– October Surprise?

Oct. 2- Vice presidential debate sponsored by the debates commission, at Washington University in St. Louis

Oct. 7- Second presidential debate, at Belmont University in Nashville; town-hall format

Oct. 15- Third and final presidential debate, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.; on foreign policy.

Oct. 23- Final pre-election campaign finance reports due to Federal Election Commission

Nov. 4- Election Day