Reactions to story from The Washington Post

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  Cubans, and Obama: Not your “typical Hispanic Democrat vote”

  http://faustasblog.com/?p=7334
  34 days ago in Fausta’s Blog · Authority: 330

  Babalu links to the UK’s Guardian, McCain plays on fear of ‘communismo’Cuban American voters in Miami fear Barack Obama’s policies will lead the country down the path to communism “Communismo,” said Michael Garcia, 30, the son of Cuban émigrés who works at his family-owned accounting business. “I shouldn’t have to pay more taxes because I work harder than other people,” he said. “The things that Obama say scare me because that’s everything that Fidel said. These things are associated in my mind with going down the path to communism.” … “Communismo,” said Michael Garcia, 30, the son of Cuban émigrés who works at his family-owned accounting business. “I shouldn’t have to pay more taxes because I work harder than other people,” he said. “The things that Obama say scare me because that’s everything that Fidel said. These things are associated in my mind with going down the path to communism.” They’ve been there, they’ve been done for by that, “Obama is saying 100% the same things that Castro was saying before 1959,” said Nerty Piscola who left Cuba as a teenager in 1969. “It sounds good. Many people want to be equal, but the result is that everyone is equal and everyone is poor. We don’t want to go through the same experience again.” The fears run even deeper among those who were adults at the time of the revolution. “If Obama takes power, you are going to see all the people going to the fields to cut sugar cane,” said Lazaro de Jesus, a sign painter. I don’t agree with the sugar cane part, but To some Cubans, Obama is a young Castro. The cult of personality, the talk about redistributing wealth, the call for a national volunteer service, the Communist friends. The Guardian article continues, Cuban Americans, because of their numbers and their history of voting Republican, have for years been the power brokers in Florida. In recent years, they have been reinforced in their anti-socialist, anti-Democratic views by a new wave of Spanish-speaking exiles from Venezuela. At least 80,000 have settled in Florida since Chávez came to power in 2000. Lorraine Thomas, a businesswoman who left Venezuela in 2002, argues that an Obama White House would destroy the very essence of America. “If Obama wins, I think he is going to take half of the American dream away,” she said. “You are going to come here and you are going to get taxed a lot of money and you are going to give money to people that don’t work and are lazy.” Anyone who believes there is a “Hispanic” vote is deluding themselves. Share on Facebook
• 

  Obama Calls for National Service

  http://beadseller.us/Blog/?p=17
  148 days ago in Hillary Democrats United · Authority: 1

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR2008070203152.html?wpisrc=newsletter Democrat Visiting GOP Strongholds By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 3, 2008 COLORADO SPRINGS, July 2 — Continuing to press the themes of values, faith and patriotism, Sen. Barack Obama exhorted Americans on Wednesday “to step into the strong currents of history” and volunteer for service to their country, pledging to dramatically expand opportunities for those accepting his challenge. On a campaign swing that included visits to military bases, which he had previously largely steered clear of, the Democratic presidential candidate emphasized his own love of country. “That’s the bet our Founding Fathers were making all of those years — that our individual destinies could be tied together in the common destiny of democracy, that government depends not just on the consent of the governed but on the service of citizens,” he told a small audience filling a gymnasium at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. “That’s what history calls us to do, because loving your country shouldn’t just mean watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility to do your part to change it.” Throughout the week, Obama has been striving to win over voters in Republican areas, defending his patriotism in Independence, Mo., on Monday; pledging to expand federal assistance to religious social service groups in rural Ohio on Tuesday; and preaching service in central Colorado on Wednesday. He will speak about veterans in Fargo, N.D., on Thursday, then will highlight the theme of family on Friday as he celebrates Independence Day in Butte, Mont., with his wife and two daughters. He emphasized what he called “the enormity of the American accomplishment,” touring Peterson Air Force Base here and visiting the ultra-secretive North American Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Northern Command headquarters and the Air Force Academy. Such stateside military visits have been a rarity for Obama. Since entering the Senate in 2005, he has visited only the National War College and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, along with two bases in Illinois, his home state. But such installations are critical in the West, especially here. Colorado gave President Bush 52 percent of its vote in 2004, compared with 47 percent for his Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), but the vote in El Paso County, the home of Colorado Springs, was a far more lopsided 67 percent to 32 percent. Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), who won his seat in 2004, said Obama was “exactly right” to campaign here and attempt to at least trim his margin of defeat. “The ideal is to win; however, having been a veteran of three statewide races in six years, I know the reality of places like El Paso County,” Salazar said. Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, a strong supporter of Obama’s primary opponent, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), said that after the hard-fought primary season, Obama had no choice but to reintroduce himself to the wider audience of the general-election campaign. Citing a front-page photo in Wednesday’s Des Moines Register of Obama surrounded by small-town Ohio children, Vilsack said the effort appeared to be going well. “People want to know not just what his proposals are or that he gives a good speech,” Vilsack said. “They want to know where his heart is.” Obama did not shy from partisan controversy as he spoke here of Sept. 11, 2001, and Americans’ readiness to serve after the attacks. “We were ready to step into the strong current of history and to answer a new call for our country, but the call never came,” he said. “Instead of a call to service, we were asked to go shopping.” At $3.5 billion a year, his service plan, laid out last December and expanded on only slightly Wednesday, has been derided by conservatives as an example of big government. He would expand the AmeriCorps program established by President Bill Clinton by 250,000 slots, double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011, expand the Foreign Service, and create an Energy Corps to conduct renewable-energy and environmental-cleanup projects. Veterans would be enlisted to help other veterans find jobs and support, and a Social Investment Fund Network would support the nonprofit sector. An American Opportunity Tax Credit would offer $4,000 to college students for 100 hours of public service. A planned expansion of the Army and Marines by 92,000 would be fostered with pay raises, more family-friendly policies and an end to recruiting impediments such as “stop-loss” decrees that prevent service members from leaving on schedule. A component Obama added Wednesday would allow veterans to use expanded education benefits under the newly passed GI Bill to seek training for jobs working with renewable energy. Obama stressed his own experience working after college as a community organizer for $12,000 a year, as well as the role that his wife, Michelle, has played with AmeriCorps in Chicago. “Through service, I found a community that embraced me, citizenship that was meaningful, the direction I’d been seeking,” he said. Republicans here savaged Obama in a conference call, raising his past support for gun control and his private fundraiser Wednesday night at the ritzy Broadmoor hotel, which they say is closed to avoid questions about retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark. Last weekend, Clark said Republican Sen. John McCain’s war record is not a qualification for the presidency. Obama has “chosen to have private meetings because he knows the backlash he would experience here because of the actions of his surrogates,” said state Rep. Bob Gardner (R-Colorado Springs). North Dakota, where Obama will be campaigning Thursday, gave Bush 63 percent in 2004. Fargo’s Cass County was only slightly closer, with a split of 59 percent to 39 percent. Montana was similarly deep red in 2004, although Silver Bow County, where Obama will be campaigning, is a Democratic labor-union stronghold. Kerry won 57 percent of the vote there. But Salazar said Obama is wise to take on the values issue. “I think it’s a mistake for Democrats to run away from that values-based discussion,” he said. The Obama campaign believes that the candidate has found a way to meld his calls for a more active government with an appeal to military-oriented voters and his own efforts to dispel stubborn notions that he lacks patriotism. “There is a lesson to be learned from generations who have served: from soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines, suffragists and freedom riders, teachers and doctors, cops and firefighters,” he said. “It’s the lesson that in America, each of us is free to seek our own dreams, but we must also serve a common purpose, a higher purpose.”
• 

  Obama Calls for National Service

  http://worldaccordingtolaurah.blogspot.com/2008/07/obama-cal...
  151 days ago in The World According to Laura H · No authority yet

  COLORADO SPRINGS, July 2 -- Continuing to press the themes of values, faith and patriotism, Sen. Barack Obama exhorted Americans on Wednesday 'to step into the strong currents of history' and volunteer for service to their country, pledging to dramatically expand opportunities for those accepting... read more | digg story
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  Is Obama’s national service “mainstream?”

  http://horserace08.freedomblogging.com/2008/07/03/is-obamas-...
  152 days ago in Horserace ‘08 - OCRegister.com · Authority: 94

  Is Obama’s national service “mainstream?” July 3rd, 2008, 4:09 pm by by Alan Bock, Register editorial writer It was really a disappointment to see Barack Obama endorsing an expansion of “national service” during his so-called values tour of the “heartland. One news story said that although there was nothing new in it — presidents ritually tout national service — it was designed to show how “mainstream” Obama really is. Balderdash! To be sure, the kind of national service these guys tout is hardly a replication of the Hitler Youth, but it does promote the idea that the only kind of service that really counts is stuff that is done at the behest of the State and organized by the State. That is a remarkably obnoxious and arguably anti-American idea. The genius of this country has been to provide a climate of liberty in which people can pursue their own goals, their own dreams, and their own idea of service to others. Putting those healthy voluntaristic impulses at the service of the State verges on the fascistic. If it ever really becomes mainstream in this country we’ll know we’re on a downward track. Read more Barack Obama, Social policies
• 

  Obama and McCain

  http://carolkeefer.blogspot.com/2008/07/obama-and-mccain.htm...
  152 days ago in Awareness · Authority: 1

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR2008070203152.html http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/pattysc/gGxstF http://news.aol.com/elections/story/_a/obama-focuses-on-turning-red-states-blue/n20080703125609990024 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR2008070203038.html?nav=hcmoduletmv http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/07/schmidt_to_take_over_mccain_ca.html?sid=ST2008070203914&pos=list http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/07/03/mccain-campaign-breaks-down-shakes-up/#cont http://news.aol.com/elections/story/_a/the-mushy-middle-hard-to-reach-for-obama/n20080703121709990008?cid=435
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  Obama: “I am asking you to change history’s course.”

  http://www.one.org/blog/2008/07/03/obama-i-am-asking-you-to-...
  152 days ago in ONE · Authority: 138

  Obama: “I am asking you to change history’s course.” July 3rd, 2008 at 2:25 pm | posted by Betsy Avila Yesterday, Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama promoted national service at home and abroad in an effort to renew American diplomacy, asking individual citizens to stand up and “change history’s course.” He addressed an audience at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs: “I am running for President, right now, because of what Dr. King called the fierce urgency of now…Our country faces determined enemies abroad, and definitive challenges at home. But I have no doubt that in the face of these odds, people who love their country can change it. That is why I am running for President. That is why I’m determined to reach out - not just to Democrats, but to Independents and Republicans who want to move in a new direction. And that is why I won’t just ask for your vote as a candidate - I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am President of the United States.” His plan on voluntary public service, according to the campaign website, includes, among other things: Expanding Americorps from 75,000 to 250,000 and Peace Corps to 16,000 slots. Extending opportunities for professionals and senior citizens to serve overseas. A $4000 American Opportunity Tax credit for college students who volunteer 100 hours of community service. Creating an agency within the Corporation for National and Community Service to promote the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations. The senator noted: “This will not be a call issued in one speech or one program - this will be a central cause of my presidency.” -Betsy Avila Posted in Sen. Obama, ONE Vote 08

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