[Mb-civic] Obama

[Linda Hassler]

Michael, I had trouble getting an article from the NYTimes on CIVIC 
yesterday. When the article says "EMAIL THIS," I can send to others 
just by putting in their URL. I did that using Mb-civic-islandlists.com 
yesterday, but it was rejected. Is there someone at the helm to talk 
with about this? I see you send articles all the time.

Hugs,

Linda

Here's an excerpt from The American Prospect on Obama:

Senator Dick Durbin, Obama’s Illinois partner and the second-ranking 
Democrat in the Senate, has no doubt about the future of his state’s 
most popular politician. “He’s an odds-on favorite to run for higher 
office,” Durbin predicts. “If you are a personal investment banker, you 
certainly want to invest in the Barack Obama IPO … It is a solid 
investment in the American political scene.”

It’s ironic, all this talk, given that his party didn’t even want him 
in the first place. Many party leaders backed Dan Hynes, the state 
comptroller and Cook County political scion. There’s a lesson the party 
needs to learn here about nurturing and developing such obvious talent 
(do the Republicans ignore their Obamas?). In any case, his party can’t 
get enough of him now. Obama has bolstered his status within his party 
by raising huge amounts of cash for his colleagues’ campaigns. His 
political action committee, Hopefund, raised an estimated $1.8 million 
in 2005. That doesn’t count the millions he has raised for and donated 
to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and to individual 
candidates. In one night alone last fall, he raised $1 million for the 
Arizona Democratic Party by drawing 1,400 people to a dinner. And with 
one e-mail, Obama raised $800,000 for Senator Robert Byrd of West 
Virginia, a powerhouse who first was elected to the Senate nearly three 
years before Obama was born.

Most of his fund-raising trips are not on his public schedules. And 
Obama’s staff, quick to tout his 39 town hall meetings in 31 Illinois 
counties, claimed not to know how many fund-raising events he attended 
around the country the past year. A fair assumption might be that Obama 
is collecting chits and loyalties and building a national political 
machine, a precursor to a presidential run. It’s something that 
everyone around him talks about. The senator himself is more 
understated. “I think it’s flattering,” he says of the conjecture. “It 
indicates that I’m doing something right. But I try not to get too far 
ahead of myself. And I find that I perform best when I’m focused on 
being useful as opposed to becoming something.”

Undoubtedly, pressure and speculation will grow as 2008 approaches. 
Even if Obama doesn’t run for president then -- and his advisers insist 
he won’t -- another kind of pressure will present itself: to use his 
unique talents and his bully pulpit to further a progressive agenda. 
Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, the 
first labor union to endorse Obama during his primary campaign, said 
he’d like to see Obama lead on issues that are critical to working 
people. “America needs champions right now. And he has that ability and 
potential,” Stern said. “My New Year’s resolution for him is not wait 
in line but seize the time.” If Obama indeed is destined to do great 
things, the time may be right for him to step more forcefully into the 
spotlight that beckons.

Jodi Enda writes about politics and government from Washington. Her 
last piece for the Prospect was “Howard’s Beginning,” a profile of 
Howard Dean, in the August 2005 issue.

© 2006 by The American Prospect, Inc.