Obama

In a pseudo-memo to President-elect Obama today, Michael Gerson (former speechwriter/policy advisor to President Bush and current Washington Post columnist) has this interesting hypothetical:

"Political indifference to durable poverty in our midst has long been a scandal; from Obama it would be a tragedy. America does need to ‘spread the wealth' -- but not in the simply redistributionist sense. The racial divide in our country is widest when it comes to assets. The median net worth of white and Asian Americans in 2004 was $142,700. The median net worth of African Americans was $20,400. There are many reasons for this massive disparity, including what Lincoln called centuries of ‘unrequited toil.' Reparations are a politically self-destructive dead end. But what if President Obama, for example, proposed to set up tax-free savings accounts for every poor child at birth and seeded those accounts with a few thousand dollars? Addressing the wealth gap through the miracle of compound interest would be a lasting contribution to the justice of our country."

Here in the Asset Building Program, we couldn't agree more.

The fear is that a big turnout among African-American and Latino voters for Obama might give Prop 8, the same-sex marriage ban, a crucial boost. Some polling shows broader support for Prop 8 among such voters than in the electorate as a whole. The dynamic also might boost Prop 4, the California initiative to require parental notification before an abortion is performed on a minor.

A break from direct democracy for a quick thought on baseball and politics: It's not the Boston-Los Angeles World Series that TV executives wanted, but has there ever been a more politically important World Series than Philadelphia-Tampa Bay? The Phillies and Rays represent arguably the two most important swing regions in the country. The counties outside of Philadelphia, full of Phillies fans, are a hotly contested battleground. And Obama needs to turn out big numbers in the city itself to win Pennsylvania. And Tampa Bay is the western edge of Florida's swing corridor; statewide elections are decided by votes in the region from there to Orlando.

Prepare to see pandering from both Democrats and Republicans to fans of both teams. Look for Obama, who needs Pennsylvania desperately, to sound a bit more pro-Phillie and for McCain, who must hold Florida for the Republicans, to talk up the Rays.

If you thought that the economic crisis had wiped health reform off the issues map, think again. Health care is red hot on the campaign this week.

Obama has been speaking about health care on the stump, arguing McCain has a "radical" plan that will shift costs to families. Obama is running at least four TV commercials on health care (see ads called "Coin," "Mother" "Two Extremes" and "The Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere"). We haven't spotted any health-policy focused ads from McCain, and we don't see any on his web site. (Please send us a link if we've missed it).

Obama attacks McCain's health plan on numerous fronts—how the plan to tax benefits and shift people into an individual market would probably have fewer patient protections than it has today; how McCain's plan would undermine employer-sponsored health plans, and the lack of protections for people with pre-existing conditions. In the ad called "Two Extremes" Obama also takes on the McCain campaign for accusing him of orchestrating a government-takeover of health care, and then outlines the way his own proposal will preserve the parts of the employer-based private system that work today while fixing what's broken.

Barack Obama, in a letter to the Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, strongly opposed the California ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage. It's a risky move. He will likely face criticism that by opposing the initiative in a state that has legalized same sex marriage, he's supporting gay marriage. (Officially, he has said marriage is between a man and a woman). There's also a church angle to this. Obama's longtime denomination, the United Church of Christ (it's also my family's church), has endorsed same-sex marriage and ordained gay pastors.