The Alligator

In February 2008, Senator Barack Obama wrote an “Open Letter to the LGBT Community”. Penned weeks before the Senator’s historic speech on race, the open letter is as eloquent and nuanced as that speech and he thoughtfully addresses the issues of discrimination faced by LGBT Americans as he did with the issue of the racial divide in America. Senator Obama doesn’t just offer platitudinal promises to the LGBT community, but talks honestly about the uphill battle it will take to achieve equal rights- how difficult it could be to change the hearts and minds of many Americans.

He also addresses with remarkable understanding how stigma often tied to homophobia is a factor that must be addressed in order to steam the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

There is little I can add to the reason why the LGBT community should support Senator Obama than to quote the eloquence of the Senator’s own words as written in his letter to the LGBT Community.

I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all – a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans. Equality is a moral imperative. That’s why throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation.

In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage.

Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. I have also called for us to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system.

The next president must also address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. When it comes to prevention, we do not have to choose between values and science. While abstinence education should be part of any strategy, we also need to use common sense. We should have age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception. We should pass the JUSTICE Act to combat infection within our prison population. And we should lift the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. In addition, local governments can protect public health by distributing contraceptives.

We also need a president who’s willing to confront the stigma – too often tied to homophobia – that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. I confronted this stigma directly in a speech to evangelicals at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, and will continue to speak out as president. That is where I stand on the major issues of the day. But having the right positions on the issues is only half the battle. The other half is to win broad support for those positions. And winning broad support will require stepping outside our comfort zone. If we want to repeal DOMA, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and implement fully inclusive laws outlawing hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace, we need to bring the message of LGBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones – and that’s what I’ve done throughout my career. I brought this message of inclusiveness to all of America in my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention.

I talked about the need to fight homophobia when I announced my candidacy for President, and I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign – from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. Martin Luther King once preached. Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary. Americans are yearning for leadership that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country.

To do that, we need leadership that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.

Well, a somber anniversary is upon us.  Today March 19, 2008 will mark the 5th year of the Iraqi War. The war that began with shock and awe and where we were to be greeted as liberators that has broken into Civil War and then into a war where expectations are so low that the administration celebrates because the colossal death toll isn’t as horrendous as it was.

This war that has taken nearly 4,000 American lives (3,990 as of today) and has done untold damage to the credibility of the United States throught the world and has done amazing damage to Iraq and the Iraqis.

It is a war of corruption where “no-bid” contracts go to buddies of the Bush administration like Haliburton and its subsidiaries, Blackwater, and the list goes on. We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on an American Embassy in Baghdad- Why? Because we plan on being a mighty presence in the country for a very long time.

This is a war where we the year old surge was supposed to give breathing room for the Iraqis to come together and make political progress. This is something that even General Petraeus agrees is not happening as it should.  But Senator McCain believes we can achieve victory and that we could be in Iraq for a century.  At this point no one knows what victory means because the definition keeps changing based on what is political expedient for the war’s supporters.

This war has been the most colossal blunder that this nation has ever made. It has been an exercise in lies, manipulation, profits for companies with ties to the administration, lost  lives, untold damage to military families, remarkable damage to returning vets with paltry benefits to help them.  No matter what one’s feelings about this war- it is immoral not to support the returning soldiers with decent benefits and the best healthcare available.  We have wasted nearly one trillion dollars on President Bush’s and his neo-con friends’ folly and our esteem in the world has been severely damaged.

In a recent article in “The Nation” by Robert Pollin & Heidi Garrett-Peltier wrote about the not fully recognized economic disaster caused by the war. According to the article “The Wages of Peace”, Pollin and Garrett-Pelier posit that with just the amount of the Iraq budget of 2007, $138 billion, the government could instead have provided Medicaid-level health insurance for all 45 million Americans who are uninsured. What’s more, we could have added 30,000 elementary and secondary schoolteachers and built 400 schools in which they could teach. And we could have provided basic home weatherization for about 1.6 million existing homes, reducing energy consumption in these homes by 30 percent.

But the article points out that the economic consequences of Iraq run even deeper than the squandered opportunities for vital public investments. Spending on Iraq is also a job killer. Every $1 billion spent on a combination of education, healthcare, energy conservation and infrastructure investments creates between 50 and 100 percent more jobs than the same money going to Iraq. Taking the 2007 Iraq budget of $138 billion, this means that upward of 1 million jobs were lost because the Bush Administration chose the Iraq sinkhole over public investment. I also addressed the issue of the wars cost in our treasure in an article linked below- “Not a Mistake? Worth the blood and treasure? The War in Iraq”

There is little more that I can say here that I haven’t already said in articles on this blog before. While many if not most of my articles reference the debacle in Iraq there are 21 articles that address the issue of the war directly.  As my way to mark this very dark anniversary, this article links all the articles I have written over the past few years that directly address the War in Iraq. 

Our military is breaking, We are threatened more by al-Qaeda, Afghanistan is “bumpy” and Our troops support Ron Paul and Barack Obama… But let’s stay the course!

Not a Mistake? Worth the blood and treasure? The War In Iraq

Rendition and American Torture: The Loss of our Morality and our Credibility

Private Security Contractors: Mercenaries Pure and Simple! The Danger in Outsourcing the Military

Iraq: I’m so angry, I could spit

To Impeach or Not To Impeach? That is the question, but what is the answer?

Fear and Trembling

Not A Happy Anniversary- Four Years of “Mission Accomplished”

A Dark Day- 4 Years in Iraq, It’s the economy stupid!

Who doesn’t support our troops? The Republicans -Just look at the Bush administration and the 109th Congress

US saber rattling with Iran- Preposterous? I don’t think so! Fool me once- shame on you. Fool me twice – shame on me!

Bush’s War – Is it in the last throes?

What could he be thinking? The pathology of President Bush

What does Victory mean?

Botched Joke or Botched War- Which is worse?

Civil War- Calling the Debacle in Iraq what it is

Compromising Security in the Name of Politics

Why Iraq and not Sudan?

The Legacy of 9/11

The Iraqi War - longer than WW II

Less Safe Than Ever - Thank you President Bush

Are the Republican candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul) deluded or on drugs? I don’t quite understand how it could be possible for 4 sentient beings to stand on a dais behind lecterns and seriously say that the war in Iraq was not a mistake and is worth the blood and treasure spent on it by an American people. I do have a caveat here about Ron Paul- his zealot libertarian stance scares the begeezes out of me- he seems to advocate for a form of economic anarchy, but I digress from my original point- the War in Iraq.

When pressed by Tim Russert, Mayor Giuliani, Senator McCain, Governor Romney and Governor Huckabee all were comfortable that the war was not a mistake and was worth the loss of blood and treasure.

At least Governor Huckabee had the “gumption” to hearken back to the initial argument the Bush administration gave to go to war- WMDs. Of course his analogy to WMDs being hidden around the country like little benign Easter Eggs was one of the more humorous moments of the debate- although the idea that a Presidential candidate would even make such an idiotic analogy is very disturbing.

Mr. Huckabee was even more disturbing when in a post-debate interview he suggested that maybe these WMDs had been secretly moved to Jordan. JORDAN? Jordan is probably the very best friend we have in the Arab world. The former King of Jordan – Hussein married an American woman, Queen Noor- the former Lisa Halaby, and enjoyed close relationships with American Presidents. His son King Abdullah II also is a good friend to our country- although the Bush administration has strained that relationship as much as it could with our conduct of the Iraq War. Is it possible that good ‘ol boy Mike meant to say Syria? I guess it don’t matter much- all them A-rabs – don’t they all wear towels on their head and look alike anyway? It’s time to wave your hand bye-bye Mike. You have no place on the world stage.

The only thing that might have been remotely interesting about the thought of a Huckabee presidency is the thought of the Huckabees deciding to renovate the White House and move into a mobile home on the White House grounds like they did when the Governor’s Mansion in Arkansas was being renovated.

Mr. Huckabee’s buffoonery aside let’s go back to the war not being a mistake and worth the blood and treasure. Let’s dissect these three issues separately.

Was the war a mistake? 

First let’s look at the issue of the war being a mistake. Maybe mistake is too benign – outright lie might be more accurate.  I think it is safe to say it is a mistake to go to war on the premise of lies told to Congress and the public. The Center for Public Integrity- a non-partisan and non-advocacy group that is committed to transparent and comprehensive reporting both in the United States and around the world, released a study that concludes that following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

According to the study President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

Going to war based on lies is always a mistake. The Center for Public Integrity’s report states:

“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose “Duelfer Report” established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq’s nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.”

Add to these lies leading us to war a few other facts- 1) This war shifted a policy that this country had had since its founding- not conducting a preëmptive war 2) This war has tarnished our reputation throughout the world and most significantly in the Arab world stretching many of our hard fought alliances in the region to their breaking point, and 3)This war was waged while we left the war in Afghanistan to hang in the wind so Al Qaeda and its ally the Taliban could freely reconstitute in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan and you have a definitive and indisputable answer: The war was definitely a mistake.

Given that the war can definitely be categorized as a mistake- it seems moot to even explore the cost in blood and treasure since nothing that is a mistake is worth any blood or treasure. But looking at the expense of this folly in terms of blood and treasure is important

Was the war worth the cost in blood?

The estimates for the dead in Iraq estimate from a low of 150,000 reported in a “New England Journal of Medicine” study to a high of 650,000 reported in the respected medical journal “The Lancet”. In order to be “fair”, let’s assume an average of the two extremes- 400,000.

Add to that the nearly 4,000 American troops dead and nearly 29,000 troops wounded. An estimated number of around 2,000 troops come home with brain injuries. In 2006- two years ago (the most up to date numbers I can find specific to this particular injury)- the official number of brain- injured Iraq veterans was more than 1,700, but Harriet Zeiner, Palo Alto’s leading neuropsychologist, believes that well over 6,000 such injuries is a far more realistic estimate. We can only assume that these numbers are higher two years later.

One year ago in January 2007, Time published an article “A Grim Milestone”. The 500th major amputee as of that date had occurred. According to the article limb-loss has occurred twice as often in Iraq as in any conflict of the past century, except for Vietnam, for which there are no good statistics. The 500 major amputations — toes and fingers aren’t counted — represent 2.2% of the 22,700 U.S. troops wounded in action reported at that time. Extrapolating that percentage to the current 29,000 troops wounded- and it adds another 138 for a total of 638 major amputees.

In an article from Medscape Medical Journal from November 6, 2007 the estimates of the rate of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among veterans returning from Iraq range from 12% to 20%. With deployment topping 1.5 million by the summer 2007, and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) having treated more than 52,000 persons, the greatest effect of those mental health issues has yet to be experienced. These problems and interventions were presented at the American Public Health Association 135th Annual Meeting in Washington DC in November 2007. Evan Kanter, MD, PhD, staff psychiatrist in the PTSD Outpatient Clinic of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, said that estimates are for a minimum of 300,000 psychiatric casualties from service in Iraq

So let us tally up the numbers. An average estimate of 400,000 Iraqi deaths -not to mention the toll of Iraqi wounded (a number for which I cannot even find an estimate) and the millions of Iraqis who have been displaced, nearly 4,000 American troops dead, nearly 29,000 wounded with estimates of over 6,000 returning with brain injuries, over 600 with major amputations and more than 300,000 Americans returning from Iraq with psychiatric disorders. It’s a staggering and obscene amount of death and loss that never should have occurred. For the Republican candidates to say that this neo-conservative folly sold to the people with a lie is worth this sort of human tragedy is simply immoral.

Was the war worth the cost in treasure?

According to the National Priorities Project, a 501(c)(3) research organization that analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent and focuses on the impact of federal spending and other policies at the national, state, congressional district and local levels, the taxpayer cost of the Iraq War by the end of FY 2007 has been a total of $456 billion. The administration has requested nearly $200 billion in war-related spending for fiscal year 2008. Congress has not yet passed this request and will only be considering it in 2009. Based of the FY 2007 costs this breaks down to:

$4,100 for every American household
$1,500 for every American
$3,400 for every taxpayer
$11 million per hour and
$275 million per day

It is important to remember that the President has always requested war funding as “Supplemental Spending” which means that it doesn’t show up in the annual federal budget but it does affect the national debt- an amount that is somewhere around $9 trillion.

This doesn’t begin to address future costs including what public health officials estimate to be lifetime costs of mental healthcare for veterans returning from Iraq which Evan Kanter, MD, PhD, staff psychiatrist in the PTSD Outpatient Clinic of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, estimates at $660 billion.

So the cost in treasure has been and will continue to be staggering in direct and indirect costs for many years to come.

Conclusion- Immorality

For any person who wishes to lead this country for the next 4 years to suggest that this immoral war is worth any toll let alone the staggering cost in lives lost and money spent is simply unfathomable to me. It is absurd to think that this war has been worth the cost of one life or one dollar; it is repulsive, un-American, and grotesque to suggest that this war has been worth the true cost in blood and treasure in simply immoral.

One year from today at Noon Eastern Standard Time the 44th President of the United States will be sworn in. Is the nation hungering for more than just “easy change” but for transformation?

Senator Barack Obama got himself into a heap of problems with the Democratic Party machine when he talked about Ronald Reagan being one of the transformational presidents in our history.

His exact words were, “I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times…I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

There is no doubt that I loathe Ronald Reagan. But I have to agree that his Presidency has had a profound effect on this country since 1980.

You can see articles on my blog- Who ended the Cold War? The Clash of Myth and Reality   about how I find the credit given to him for ending the Cold War absolutely ridiculous. The stage had been being set by US Presidents for a long time- just look at some of the comments made by President Gerald R. Ford about this issue that were released after President Ford’s death when he contended that his negotiations of the Helsinki Accords on Human Rights had much to do with the movement towards the demise of the Soviet Union. Of course- there is also the fact that without President Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, and Pope John Paul II had a hand in “tearing down that wall”.

You can also read how much I feel that his inattention to the AIDS epidemic in the United States was beyond reprehensible and that he has the blood of thousands of people on his hands by not addressing the issue for years which led to not funding prevention, care and research appropriately in my piece A Half Century on the Planet: A Reflection on my 50th birthday

So I am no fan of Ronald Reagan but there is no doubt that he was a transformational figure in our political landscape. He is still affecting our nation today nearly 20 years after he first left office. His legacy is one that while I believe was ultimately not for the better but for the worse- and led us towards a nation willing to elect George W. Bush not once but twice- he had a profound effect on the nation. To ignore that is simply putting one’s fingers in one’s ears and going “LA LA LA LA LA”.

Face it, President Clinton never would have dismantled Welfare if it had not been for his desire to pander to the politics of Reagan. President Clinton was not forced into Welfare Reform, he promoted it. Have the Clintons forgotten that little piece of information when warmly remembering the wonderful days of the 1990’s. I liked President Clinton as a President, but he did not change the direction of this nation. He was not a transformational leader like Presidents Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt or President Lincoln. One does not have to agree with the transformation that the transformational leader inspired to acknowledge that that leader did in fact created change.

Walter Dean Burnham had a theory of transformational presidents and non-transformational president. Franklin Roosevelt was a transformational president, somebody who didn’t just occupy the office but fundamentally changed the country according to Burnham. In my opinion he created transformation that I applaud as opposed to the transformation that Reagan created which I deplore.

Senator Obama was correct though. Through the 1970’s we liberals did not tend to the New Deal and Great Society programs that were brilliantly developed to lift up our poor and our lower classes. We were smug and lazy and these programs became bloated bureaucracies that did not move smartly in order to be as effective as possible. They became ripe for discontent for many of the “Reagan Democrats”. Add to that the jingoist American arrogance that came from our declaration that we ended the cold war that allowed us to develop more arrogant foreign policies and swagger in our step on the world stage and you can see the writing on the wall towards our march to the first prëmptive war in our nation’s history- the war where we are currently mired in Iraq.

There is nothing wrong with saying that we need another transformational leader to move us in a new direction. If neither Senators Clinton nor Edwards are willing to acknowledge the realities of our history that is somewhat troubling to me. My sense is that they do indeed understand history but knowing how much many of us liberals loathe Reagan and his legacy it was awfully good political fodder.

“If I understand what he was saying I can’t entirely disagree with it. They both came along at times when society was on the cusp of change and they are both agents of change,” President Reagan’s youngest son Ron Reagan Jr, told the Huffington Post. “As far as Barack Obama being a similar agent of change, that remains to be seen. But what I do see him saying is that we are in a historical moment right now like the 60s and 80s. And I think he’s right. We are overdue for a cultural shift right now.”

I have often thought that Ron Reagan Jr., was not a fan of his father’s politics but a zealous protector of his father’s legacy. I think his comment that we are overdue for a cultural shift is dead on.

In an interview with “American Prospect” magazine, Pulitzer Prize winning Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said:

“History suggests that unless a progressive president is able to mobilize widespread support for significant change in the country at large, it’s not enough to have a congressional majority. For example, Bill Clinton had a Democratic majority when he failed to get health reform.

When you look at the periods of social change, in each instance the president used leadership not only to get the public involved in understanding what the problems were but to create a fervent desire to address those problems in a meaningful way.”

Mr. Clinton is a political animal and politics trumped everything. He could have chosen to battle for letting gays and lesbians serve openly in the military as he promised during his campaign – he could have made good on that promise- but political expedience won out.

It is eerie that Doris Kearns Godwin’s analysis of President Clinton is not unlike that of Mr. Obama’s.

In discussing Teddy Roosevelt, Goodwin said “Roosevelt faced a conservative Congress. But the muckrakers created, in the middle class especially, an understanding of what had to be done in conservation, in food and drug legislation, in the regulation of the railroads. They revealed in long, factual, investigative pieces the way in which Standard Oil and the trusts were constricting opportunity for smaller, independent businesses. Then, with an aroused public, TR was able to pressure the Congress to do something. Similarly, in the early days of the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt used the power of the bully pulpit in his famous fireside chats to drive home to the country at large the need for significant federal legislation in a wide range of areas to ease the problems of the Great Depression.”

And when  Robert Kuttner in this December 2007 interview with Goodwin for “American Prospect”, “The public has been trained for 30 years to think that there’s really nothing great the government can do, except perhaps to prevent attacks. Where do you start? How do you change public opinion so that you can then change legislative direction? Goodwin answered.

“The next president has to be able to express a sense of what America can be, what America has been in the past, and what it is not now. It has to be overarching; it cannot be just “we need this program and this program and this program.” He or she has to remind us what made people come to this country in the first place — the belief that here, as Lincoln famously said, we had formed a government “whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.” The first and the most difficult task for the new president will be to remind people what made America so special in the first place, to create an emotional desire on their part to bring our performance closer to that ideal, to make clear the wide array of artificial weights that still prevent far too many people from having a fair chance in the race of life, and then and only then to propose the legislative programs or executive actions that will address these shortcomings.”

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss when asked in an interview with Bill Steigerwald of “The Pittsburgh Tribune Review” what makes a great president he answered, “A number of things, but I think the most important ones are the vision to understand where to take the country and the skills to move the American people to that vision. All of this as blessed by historians and the American people of a later generation.”

So transformational presidencies are fundamentally the most important and have been milestones in our nation’s history. Senator Obama seems to understand this truth at a gut level.

In my essay about why I voted for Barack Obama I pointed to an article written by Michael Kinsley in the New York Times where he said “We as a society have shown no tolerance for unpleasant changes, and politicians have shown no enthusiasm for trying to persuade us that they might be necessary. If all you want is happy changes, you really don’t want change at all.”

It is clear that Senator Obama understands more clearly than most that we are at one of those junctures in our history where our nation is craving a transformational president. Every presidential historian point to the fact that a leader cannot create sea change without being able to move the American people. Mr. Kinsley astutely acknowledges that people don’t want unpleasant change and most change that is needed is indeed somewhat unpleasant. It is imperative that someone who sees beyond tinkering with one government program or another and actually inspirses the American people to move and create that change at a societal level. Society isn’t informed by policy as much as policy is informed by society. Finding how to move society forward to a vision that is positive makes creating the necessaary policy for the framework of that vision an easier task. Leadership and policy wonkiness while not necessarily mutually exclusive, are different skills.

There are none among the Republican presidential hopefuls that have a hope of developing a transformational presidency. There is nothing inspiring about this group of men. There is nothing in their words that makes one ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. These men are really not interested in change at all. They hearken back to Reagan’s revolution but have no idea how to create their own and it seems unlikely that they would even want a revolution.

Senators Clinton and Edwards are not as aware of the importance of the transformational leader as is Mr. Obama. They may indeed be able to transform things, but will they inspire? Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton might be able to create some change especially if they were elected in with a Democratic sweep of Congress. But they are focusing on programs to fix things not on inspiring the people to change and have government build programs based on the framework of that societal shift.

I go back to Ron Reagan Jr.’s comment “We are overdue for a cultural shift right now.” I couldn’t agree more. I ardently hope that the American people are honest in their desire to do the hard work for change- but that will require a leader who can lead us in that transformation.

One year from now, I do hope we are swearing in a transformational leader. Our nation needs it, we hunger for it and we are like a nomadic tribe in the desert searching for that oasis- the leader who can move us to change.

I believe that Barak Obama essentially understands this role and is ready to take it. But we’ll see how serious the people are about wanting that real change. I want to challenge us to be better than what Mr. Kinsley thinks about us- that we really only want easy change- because we will not have any change unless the people can be inspired to create change.

We are at a time that demands more than competent bureaucratic leadership and politics as usual it requires inspiration and transformational leadership. The Republicans have no policies of change nor do any of them have the qualities to inspire us- they actually have no interest in any change- it is not to their benefit. Transformational leadership? No I don’t think so- not among this crew.

Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton might create change if given a friendly Congress but will this be enough will it indeed provide that transformational leadership we need and that we crave at this time? Maybe, but I am not willing to that risk to paraphrase former President Clinton. That’s why I have put my hopes into Senator Obama. Simply transformational leadership will transform us, not just our government.

When those 21 guns salute and “Hail to the Chief” is played after the 44th President takes the oath of office one year from today I hope and pray that it will be a moment of transformation for the nation with a leader who is able to lead and inspire that transformation.

On the day before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said eloquently in his “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech words that ring so true today.

“Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.”

Two months ago today- I wrote a piece endorsing John Edwards for President. On Friday, I cast my ballot, by mail, in California’s Democratic Primary which is part of the February 5th “Tsunami” Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama.

My views about Mr. Edwards have not changed- his policies and his positions are nearly exactly the same as mine. His anger about corporate greed and the problems of the new Gilded Age resonate for me. The influence of corporate lobbyists, the oil companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the banks and the health care industry has indeed put a strangle hold on this country.

His views on health care are in synch with mine. All the Democratic candidates hold similar positions to mine on most issues that are important to me including L/G/B/T issues, HIV/AIDS issues, health care, the enviornment, and influence peddling in government.  Mr. Edwards embodies much of what I would want to see in a President. So why did I change my mind? The reasons are complicated and more esoteric than most political decisions I would make- but I’ll try to explain.

As I wrote in my November 12th endorsement of Mr. Edwards, “I think any one of the three leading Democrats- Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, and former Senator Edwards- would be acceptable. There are things to like about all of them and things that are somewhat problematic but they are all smart, committed public servants.”

Senators Obama and Edwards probably hold views closer to mine than does Mrs. Clinton. I admire her intelligence and her tenacity- but although she said she found her voice in New Hampshire during the recent primary, I would disagree. I honestly think that Mrs. Clinton found her voice when she became a member of the United States Senate. She is a good legislator and has developed respect from colleagues on both sides of the aisle- inclduing many who publicly loathed her as First Lady.  Mrs. Clinton would be an awesome Senate Majority Leader.  Her skills are at their best in the legislative branch.  

Mrs. Clinton talks a great deal about her 35 years of experienece. To her credit she has worked as a staffer in Congress, as First Lady of Arkansas, as First Lady of the United States and as a United States Senator on progressive issues that have helped improve the lives of women, children and people of color. Mr . Edwards has decades expereience fighting the good fight for the little guy against big corporate interests as an attorney. He is a “trial lawyer” which the radical right like to equate to being a member of a Satanic cult, but trial lawyers often fight on behalf of people who have been kicked around by the system and by big corporations; they are not all ambulance chasers. Clearly Mr. Edwards was one of those zealous advocates for the little guy- not an ambulance chasing sleaze bag.

Mr. Obama is the youngest of the front running Democrats and has a little different of a background- it is one of community organizing and teaching law as well as time spent in the Illinois State Legislature and a short time in the United States Senate. As I mentioned in my piece on December 17th, Mr. Obama’s political resume eerily mirrors the political resume of another Senator from Illinois who became president- Abraham Lincoln. Both have just about the same amount of experience at both the federal and state level of government.

In my original endorsement for Mr. Edwards I stated “Mr. Obama shows a lack of experience and reticence that makes me a little nervous. I don’t know if he has the gravitas to be President right now. He brings a fresh face to politics, but I haven’t really seen a lot of substance behind the rhetoric. I think that 8 years from now he would be an awesome candidate. I just don’t think he is quite ready yet.” Over the past few months I have looked at the “experience” factor more closely.

It wasn’t until the “experience” issue was raised ad infinitum by Senator Clinton’s campaign that I truly looked at the issue of experience as it relates to our nation’s best and worst presidents. James Buchanan who came to the presidency with 29 years of experience as a representative, senator, ambassador and Secretary of State was arguably one of our worst. Abraham Lincoln with experience nearly identical to Mr. Obama’s was inarguably one of our best.  My piece Presidential Candidates: Is “experience” a real issue? Just look at Abraham Lincoln addresses this issue in more depth.

So while experience is a factor it doesn’t seem to be a proven factor of presidential achievement so should it be the final arbitor in my decision making? I decided that while expereince is important – expereience varies and many other factors should be considered. 

 Mr. Obama’s experience community organizing in inner city Chicago is something that should not be ignored and give him a unique perspective.  His experience in federal government seems to bode well when looking at former Presidents

In my original endorsement of Mr. Edwards I cited concerns about Mr. Obama’s reticence and I wasn’t sure if he had that fire in his belly that is necessary for a presidential candidate and gives that person the gravitas that is so often talked about as essential for a president.

Somewhere in the last months Mr. Obama has turned my concerns about his reticence on its head.  He is hardly reticent and he shows that “fire in the belly” that is essential for any serious presidential candidate. To borrow language from Mrs. Clinton- he truly has found his voice.

I have also poured over his positions on issues and there is indeed a great deal of substance to his views. Again- those views may vary slightly from Mr. Edwards’ and Mrs. Clinton’s but they are substantially similar with the most striking similalrities being between Senators Obama and Edwards.

So with the original concerns I had about Mr. Obama off the table and my clear admiration for Mr. Edwards, what factors were at play as I cast my vote for Mr. Obama after endorsing Mr. Edwards?

Is it the change factor? Maybe a little- but the term “change” has been so over used in this campaign that I could vomit. If you want a real candidate of change vote for the former Governor of Massachusetts Willard “Mitt” Romney. He has changed his position at least once if not twice on every issue. Now that’s change!

What sort of change might Mr. Obama bring that might allude the efforts of Mr. Edwards or Mrs. Clinton?

First is generational. I am at the tail end of the baby boom generation and it seems that my generation has mired itself in a partisan red state / blue state debate that will take someone with a fresh approach in order to extricate the nation from this partisan inertia.

Second is racial. I would not vote for Mr. Obama just to see the first African American president nor would I vote for Mrs. Clinton because she would be the first woman president although either would be historic.  However Mr. Obama has approached race in a completely different way than it has been dealt with in our nation since the Civil Rights movement. It is more of a uniting theme and less a divisive one. During the Civil Rights era that divisive fight was necessary to create change. Now- forty years later- racism still haunts us and manifests itself in different ways than it did before the landmark victories of the Civil Rights moement and it will take a new approach to move forward. Mr. Obama’s role as a uniter is exactly what this nation needs at exactly the right time as we continue to wrestle with racial tensions and inequities. 

Race has haunted this country since its founding. Racism was enshrined into the original words of our Constitution, the document that we hold as the paragon as liberty and equality, in Article 1, Section 2 – the enumeration clause where the Constitution outlines how members of the House of Representatives will be apportioned to the states. Slaves were counted as three/fifths of a human being.  No matter how you try and spin it- racism has been part of our nation since before its founding. Slavery is a legacy that our nation has never truly dealt with openly, appropriately and rationally.

Mr. Obama seems to offer a new direction for racial relations in the United States- not only because he would be the first African American president but because he approaches the issues surrounding race in a new and fresh way; an approach that seems, at least to me, to be the natural next step in the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Mr. Obama’s mixed racial background and his personal story may resonate world wide as well in a way that could have much of the world rëvaluate the tradional view of United States’ arrogance and imperialism. The rest of the world might wonder if the American people have finally emerged from our cocoon.

Third is inspiration. There is no doubt in any one’s mind, from the most conservative to the most liberal, that Mr. Obama is an orator unlike any we have seen in more than a generation. I have often thought of former Governor of New York Mario Cuomo and President Bill Clinton as gifted orators and they are; but they are no match for Mr. Obama. Watching both Mr. Obama’s victory speech in Iowa and his concession speech in New Hampshire brought tears to my eyes. How many times can a cynical old liberal admit to crying at a political speeech? Not since Robert Kennedy has there been someone on the public stage that seems to move and inspire people like Mr. Obama.

More than any time in recent memory, this nation needs a leader that inspires us. For too long we have been electing men for their competence. Competence is important but we are not electing a CEO of a corporation we are electing a leader for the nation as well as the free world. That role requires someone who can inspire us and move us.  It is clear to me that Mr. Obama is certainly bright, visionary, savvy and able to lead. 

Inspiration alone is not a good enough reason to vote for someone.   Eloquent oratory is laudable but it must be combined with vision and the inspiratrion to engage us- the citizens of the United States- to join in a movement to reinvigorate the greatness of its people.

Mr. Obama emphasizes the connections between people, the networks and the webs of influence. These sorts of links are invisible to some of his rivals, but Obama is a communitarian. He believes you can only make profound political changes if you first change the spirit of the community. In his speeches, he says that if one person stands up, then another will stand up and another and another and you’ll get a nation standing up.

The key word in any Obama speech is “you.” Other politicians talk about what they will do if elected. Obama talks about what you can do if you join together. Like a community organizer on a national scale, he is trying to move people beyond their cynicism, make them believe in themselves, mobilize their common energies. It is clear that we need a leader that will stir the American people to change- not just “offer” change in Washington DC.

It was reading a piece by Michael Kinsley in the New York Times (“Stirred, Not Shaken”, January 6, 200 that ultimately swayed me towards Mr. Obama.

“Americans say they want change, and think they want it, but there is room for doubt. Change is scary. What are the candidates actually promising? As often as not, it is protection from change. They will not muck around with your Social Security. They will make sure that you don’t lose your health insurance — and that you will always be able to keep your own doctor. The world is changing fast, but they will protect you from any dire effects. They won’t let the country get flooded with poisonous toys from China or workers from Mexico or (a Mike Huckabee offering) terrorists from Pakistan. A fence, that’s what we need. A fence to cower behind, to keep out change, or at least to slow it down.

There is nothing contemptible about a reluctance to change. Most of us have it pretty good in this country, and can’t be blamed for wanting things to stay that way. For that to happen, though, will require some wrenching changes. The list isn’t surprising, or really very long, compared with the list of our blessings. We need to use less energy and borrow less money. We need to fix our schools and reform our health care system. We need to end a stupid war.

Is this what people mean when they demand “change”? Are these things what the candidates have in mind when they promise to deliver it? If so, great. But all of these (except, maybe, ending the war) will require some changes that are unpleasant. We as a society have shown no tolerance for unpleasant changes, and politicians have shown no enthusiasm for trying to persuade us that they might be necessary. If all you want is happy changes, you really don’t want change at all.”

Thinking about all of the candidates and thinking about which ones might be visionary and able to lead the nation into change by demanding our sacrifice and challenge us to unite to make a better world- it seems to me that Mr. Obama is the best choice.

A leader who can inspire us with the sort of words that haven’t been heard with such clarity since President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address on January 20, 1961- nearly a half a century ago.

“And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”

A few leaders have inspired the American people to do difficult things at difficult times, to make difficult choices and make some sacrifices and to dream beyond our imagination- all the way to the moon. Mr. Obama has convinced me that he is that leader at our particular time.

Hey folks it is 26 years into the epidemic and HIV/AIDS is still a huge problem in the United States. In all due respect to those men, women and children suffering and dying in Africa and elsewhere in the world- it is still a problem in this nation and it is simply not being addressed adequately. Much attention will rightfully be focused on the global epidemic and the horrendous toll it has taken in Africa on today’s World AIDS Day events.  It is my intention here to shine a bright light on our epidemic at home- while acknowledging that our efforts globally are also inadequate. 

 Increasingly HIV/AIDS is a disease of poverty in this nation and can only be adequately combated by addressing poverty. Increasingly people living with HIV/AIDS have a smorgasbord of heath issues that is exacerbated by the “graying” of the epidemic, the fact of decades of ingesting toxic anti retroviral medications, the need to address HIV/ AIDS as one component of overall health for many population and can only be adequately combated by addressing overall health care reform. HIV/AIDS cannot be adequately addressed without treating poverty and the broken nature of our national health care system.

HIV/AIDS has been with the world since 1981. My entire adult life has been informed by this epidemic- from the day I read a New York Times article on July 3, 1981 by Larwence Altman- “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals” when I was 23 years old. Now, I am 50 years old and I have been HIV positive for somewhere around 20 years and full blown AIDS for nearly 9 years.

Some things have changed but sadly many things have not changed. In the early days it was perceived as a “gay” disease and now in the United States impacts all populations with disproportionate impact on African American women, men who have sex with men- specifically young men of color.

Let’s look at a quick snapshot of HIV/AIDS in my city of San Francisco as well as nationally and globally. The statistics at all levels are sobering and are a clarion call that we must remain vigilant.

San Francisco
Today, San Francisco continues to have the nation’s highest per capita prevalence of cumulative AIDS cases, and AIDS remains the second leading cause of premature death in the city. The number of persons living with AIDS in San Francisco has increased by 43% over the last decade alone - a percentage that does include more rapidly escalating non-AIDS HIV cases Through December 31, 2006, a cumulative total of 26,991 cases of AIDS had been diagnosed in San Francisco, accounting for nearly 3% of all AIDS cases ever identified in the US (n=925,452) and nearly 20% of all AIDS cases diagnosed in California (n=139,019), despite the fact that San Francisco County contains only 2% of the state’s population.

In San Francisco- one out of every four gay men is HIV infected. One in every 37 residents of the city of San Francisco is living with HIV/AIDS (2,713 cases of HIV per 100,000). As of December 31, 2006, the incidence of persons living with AIDS per 100,000 in San Francisco County (1,292.1 per 100,000) was over five times that of Los Angeles County (217.1 per 100,000) and nearly double that of New York City (757.0 per 100,000).

USA
Here are the statistics for the USA according to the Kaiser Family Foundation:
Number of new HIV infections each year: 40,000
Number of people living with HIV/AIDS: 1.2 million, including more than 400,000 with AIDS
Number of deaths among people with AIDS in 2005: 17,011
Percent of people with HIV/AIDS not in care: 42%–59%
Percent of people infected with HIV who don’t know it: 25%

Globally
UNAIDS and the WHO indicate that between 2001 and 2007:
The number of people living with HIV/AIDS globally rose from 29 million in 2001 to 33.2 million in 2007, due to continuing new infections, people living longer with HIV, and general population growth;
The global prevalence rate (the percent of the population with HIV) leveled over this period at 0.8%;
Annual deaths increased from 1.7 million in 2001 to 2.1 million in 2007, but have declined in the last couple of years due in part to antiretroviral treatment scale up;
New HIV infections are believed to have peaked in the late 1990s, and declined between 2001 and 2007 from 3.2 million to 2.5 million. The decline is attributable to natural trends in the epidemic itself and to prevention efforts. Still, in 2007, there were more than 6,800 new HIV infections each day;2
Women represent half of all people living with HIV/AIDS, as they have since the mid-1990s;
HIV is among the leading causes of death worldwide and the number one cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa;
Most people with HIV are unaware that they are infected.

The world’s focus has shifted from the epidemic in the industrial world to the epidemic in the third world- specifically sub-Saharan Africa. It is appropriate to pour resources into the epidemic in Africa. But it is vital to address the epidemic at home as well.

President Bush has pledged billions of dollars to combat AIDS in Africa- that is commendable. But he has at best flat funded programs for HIV/AIDS and other health care issues and often he has slashed them. Most recently Congress added more funding for HIV/AIDS to the Labor/ Health/ Education bill but Mr. Bush vetoed it. Mr. Bush has also vetoed other health issues- most notably a needed expansion in the SCHIP program.

My message to Mr. Bush and his Republican friends in Congress and the Presidential candidates is that HIV/AIDS is still a very real problem in this nation.

I am supporting John Edwards for President for a variety of reasons- but a critical reason for my support is his platform on addressing HIV/AIDS at home and his emphasis on poverty as a critical issue for this country. Poverty is co-morbid with HIV/AIDS.

John Edwards was the first presidential candidate – Democratic or Republican – to take on the big insurance and drug companies and propose a plan for quality, affordable health care for every man, woman and child in America that offers everyone the option of a public plan. Today, John Edwards builds on his plan for true universal health care with specific proposals to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS at home and around the world. He will include a comprehensive new national strategy to fight HIV/AIDS, including:

Calling for universal access to HIV/AIDS medicine across the world, investing $50 billion over five years to meet that goal;

Changing the policies that protect big drug companies, at the expense of people dying of HIV/AIDS in developing countries.

Guaranteeing Treatment for Everyone with True Universal Health Care by 2012. People with HIV/AIDS who don’t have health insurance or who have inadequate insurance are significantly more likely to die from the disease. That’s the tragedy of the two health care systems in this country today – one for people who can afford the very best care and one for everyone else. True universal health care must be the foundation for a national HIV/AIDS strategy. Edwards’ plan will ensure every person in America living with HIV/AIDS gets the care they need, when they need it. His plan will also transform chronic care with a new patient-centered “medical home” approach where a primary care physician will make sure patients are getting effective treatment from a coordinated team, including palliative care. [Bhattacharya, 2003] Edwards supports the Early Treatment for HIV Act which will expand Medicaid to cover HIV-positive individuals in every state before they reach later stages of disability and AIDS. Currently, in most states, individuals must receive an AIDS diagnosis to receive services under Medicaid even though research shows that the sooner individuals living with HIV receive treatment the better the outcomes. [Porco et al., 2004]

In 2001, the CDC set a national goal of reducing the annual number of new infections in half by 2005, but the actual number of infections has barely budged. A 1998 presidential initiative set a goal of eliminating racial disparities in HIV/AIDS by 2010, but disparities are as bad today as they were then. Our disappointments can be explained in part by the failure to create a national strategy, backed by necessary funding and with clear and bold goals, specific action steps, real accountability and broad participation and buy-in from stakeholders both inside and outside of government. As president, Edwards will develop a National HIV/AIDS Strategy through an honest, comprehensive and fast-tracked process that involves stakeholders from the public and nonprofit sectors. The National Strategy will coordinate the various agencies within and outside of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that affect HIV/AIDS policy. He will hold his HHS Secretary accountable for issuing an annual report on HIV/AIDS that charts progress towards our national goals, and he will appoint a strong director of the White House office of AIDS Policy to keep these issues visible at the highest levels of government. [CDC, 1999, 2001, 2007; HHS, 1998]

About two-thirds of all new HIV/AIDS cases are diagnosed in African Americans and Latinos. African Americans are infected at nearly 10 times the rate, and Latinos at more than three times the rate, of white Americans. A 2005 study of African-American men who have sex with men in selected cities found that almost half are infected with HIV, and 67 percent do not know they have the disease. Latina women are six times more likely than white women to have HIV/AIDS. Any serious effort to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic must begin in the African-American and Latino communities, including among the incarcerated population, and address their prevention and treatment needs. We must also continue to work intensively with important overlapping groups like gay men. [CDC, 2007; KFF, 2007]

Enacting true universal health care will ensure patients have access to care, but fully funding the Ryan White CARE Act will remain essential to ensure that culturally-competent care is available for the special needs of people living with HIV/AIDS. These programs include outpatient HIV early intervention services, support services like transportation, case management, substance abuse and mental health treatment, nutrition, family-centered care for children, access to clinical trials and delivery to hard-to-reach populations. Maintaining delivery of outreach and treatment services to the LGBT community, for example, is dependent on these programs. Edwards will also put an end to waiting lines for HIV drugs — for example, more than 300 people with HIV/AIDS are on a waiting list for medication in South Carolina – and increase funds for the Housing for People with AIDS (HOPWA) programs, only federal program that provides comprehensive, community-based housing for people with HIV/AIDS. [NASTAD, 2007]

Preventing HIV/AIDS with Scientifically-Proven Strategies, Not Political Ideology
The CDC has identified the three most reliable ways to prevent HIV/AIDS infections. Yet the Bush administration focuses on only one of them – abstinence. As president, Edwards will promotes all reliable prevention strategies, including comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education to ensure young people learn all the facts about preventing HIV/AIDS and harm-reduction programs that provide high-risk individuals with access to clean syringes. He will lift the ban on federal funding for needle exchange initiatives. In addition, Edwards will support community and public education that encourages testing. [CDC, Undated; Bush, 2005]

Mr. Edwards addresses another issue in his campaign that must be addressed- poverty. Trying to fight HIV/AIDS without addressing poverty is counterintuitive.

Without addressing HIV/AIDS as part of overall health reform- a critical issue for all Americans- not just those infected and at risk for HIV/AIDS, without addressing HIV/AIDS without addressing poverty, without addressing HIV/AIDS without addressing the larger issue of health disparities, and without addressing HIV/AIDS at home as well as globally- we will, I am afraid, be emptying the ocean with a teaspoon.

Please note- my more recent post:  Why I voted for Senator Barak Obama

I am endorsing former John Edwards for President. For months I have been in a quandary about who I wanted to support for President. I think any one of the three leading Democrats- Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, and former Senator Edwards- would be acceptable. There are things to like about all of them and things that are somewhat problematic but they are all smart, committed public servants. My endorsement of John Edwards has to do with a mix of his stance on issues and some of the problems I have with Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. At the outset, I think that any one of the three would make a good President; I just think that Mr. Edwards would make a better one.

Why not a Republican?
Why not endorse a Republican? The obvious reason is that I am a Democrat, but I would cross party lines if there was someone who resonated with me. Congressman Ron Paul appeals to many Independents because of his stance on the war in Iraq. I agree with his stance on the war in Iraq, but his über Libertarian views would ultimately decimate any safety net for the poor in this country and that is unacceptable to me.

The rest of the Republicans are parroting the Bush doctrine – which shocks me, nevertheless they are. Former New York City Rudolph Giuliani seemed like a social moderate/liberal. He seemed pro-choice, pro-gay rights (after all he relied on the kindness of a gay couple and lived with them when he was going through his last divorce), and anti-gun (although he has pandered to the NRA too). Giuliani always had ego and hubris, but it has simply gone amok. He has capitalized on the tragedy of 9/11 both politically and financially (through his consulting firm) that I find him immoral. That immorality was completed when he welcomed an endorsement from Pat Robertson. Doesn’t he remember Robertson and Falwell waxing philosophic about the cause of 9/11 being the gays, lesbians, pro-choice Americans and the ACLU? Rudy is just a reprehensible hypocrite who plays fear almost as good as, if not better than, President Bush.

The other front running candidate- Mitt Romney is just a hack. He has no moral compass and will say anything and promote any policy if he thinks it will get him elected. He rails about Senator Clinton’s health care plan- but it is eerily like the one he signed into law when he was Governor of Massachusetts.  He courted the gay community when he was running for Governor of Massachusetts and now he villifies us.

Both Romney and Giuliani talk about their management skills and how Senator Clinton, in particular, and Senators Obama and Edwards have never run a city, state or business. Remember the last MBA President we had— or should I say have? George W. Bush, has a  Harvard M.B.A. (do you think Poppy had anything to do with his getting into either Yale or Harvard? But I digress) and is a former Governor of Texas. How’s that workin’ for the country? Hmmmmmmmmmm?

The only one in the ragtag crew of Republicans that I admire is Mike Huckabee because he has integrity and seems to have a sense of social justice. However his view about gays and lesbians is something I just would never be able to reconcile.

Why not Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton?
As I stated either of them would make a good President; I just think that Mr. Edwards would be better.

Mr. Obama shows a lack of experience and reticence that makes me a little nervous. I don’t know if he has the gravitas to be President right now. He brings a fresh face to politics, but I haven’t really seen a lot of substance behind the rhetoric. I think that 8 years from now he would be an awesome candidate. I just don’t think he is quite ready yet. But I will reiterate that I think he is a better choice than any of the candidates in the other party.

Mrs. Clinton is brilliant. She is disciplined and would also make an excellent President. I was actually leaning towards Mrs. Clinton for months. I feel that at the moment the gridlock that is Washington would not change. It might if Congress overwhelmingly had a Democratic majority, but barring that- Mrs. Clinton is viewed as too partisan. I think it is an unfair characterization because she has proved as a Senator from New York that she can work very well across the aisle. But in the Presidency- it is policy and leadership. Leadership is a mix of reality and perception and in the perception arena- Mrs. Clinton has some problems. If she becomes the nominee- I will vigorously support her, but I think that Mr. Edwards is running a campaign about change and I believe him. I also thinks that he embodies – more than the other two- my values and is a true defender of those that have no voice in our society.

The case for John Edwards

On every issue that matters to me, Mr. Edwards makes compelling arguements and has sound policy positions. While this may seem tedious, I want to address each issue and Mr. Edwards’ way of addressing each one.

Iraq

There is no military solution to the chaos in Iraq. Instead, the Iraqi people must solve the problem politically by taking responsibility for their country. By leaving Iraq, America will prompt the Iraqi people, regional powers, and the entire international community to find the political solution that will end the sectarian violence and create a stable Iraq. We must show the Iraqis that we are serious about leaving by actually starting to leave, with an immediate withdrawal of 40,000-50,000 troops and a complete withdrawal within nine to ten months. We should leave behind in Iraq only a brigade of 3,500 to 5,000 troops to protect the embassy and possibly a few hundred troops to guard humanitarian workers.

We can only achieve these steps through legislative action. Edwards strongly supports the supplemental spending bill passed by both Houses of Congress and vetoed by President Bush that funds the troops with a timetable for withdrawal. He has called for Congress to respond to the President’s veto by sending back the same bill—and doing this as many times as it takes for the President to end the war. Edwards supports the following specific steps:

• Stop the Escalation and Immediately Start the Drawdown
  Edwards opposed President Bush’s “surge” and supports immediately drawing down 40,000 to 50,000 combat troops.
• Require Troops to be Ready
  We should prohibit funding for any new troops that do not meet real readiness standards and that have not been properly trained and equipped. American tax dollars should be used to train and equip our troops, not to escalate the war.
• Clarify the Lack of Legal Foundation for the War
  The 2002 authorization did not give President Bush the power to use U.S. troops to police a civil war. Edwards believes that Congress should make it clear that President Bush exceeded his authority long ago. The president now needs to end the war and ask Congress for new authority to manage the withdrawal of the U.S. military presence and to help Iraq achieve stability.
• Withdraw Combat Troops within Nine to Ten Months
  Edwards believes we should completely withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within nine to ten months and prohibit permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq. After withdrawal, we should retain sufficient forces in Quick Reaction Forces located outside Iraq, in friendly countries like Kuwait, to prevent an Al Qaeda safe haven, a genocide, or regional spillover of a civil war.
• Take Additional Steps to Stabilize Iraq
  Edwards believes we should intensify U.S. efforts to train the Iraqi security forces. He would also step up U.S. diplomatic efforts by engaging in direct talks with all the nations in the region, including Iran and Syria, to bring a political solution to the sectarian violence inside Iraq, including through a peace conference.

Iran

John Edwards believes it is of the utmost importance that we prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a politically unstable leader and an open supporter of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons could also set off a regional nuclear arms race in an unstable region in the world, which would directly threaten US interests. As president, Edwards would take aggressive steps to resolve the situation and to protect the United States and our allies.

• Uniting the International Community
  We must do everything in our power to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions through diplomatic measures that will, over time, force Iran to finally understand the world community will not allow it to possess nuclear weapons. Every major U.S. ally agrees a nuclear Iran is unacceptable. This is a positive sign, and we should continue to work with them to isolate Iran.
• Directly Engaging Iran
  We need to engage Iran directly. As president, Edwards will negotiate with Iranian leaders who have met a number of criteria, such as recognition of the international rule of law, recognition of the rights of Jews and the state of Israel, and a commitment to the promise of diplomacy.
• Marginalizing Extremists
  Thousands of young and moderate Iranians are natural friends of America and the West and want to see Iran succeed economically. Edwards will take steps to expose Iran to democratic culture and ideas and will use diplomacy to separate extremists from leaders more inclined to stabilize Iran’s relations with the world.
• Leverage through Increased Pressure
  Stabilizing Iran will require the use of both “carrots” and “sticks”—pressure and incentives. While the sanctions already in place provide some leverage over Iran, they have had limited success. As president, Edwards will pursue a new course of targeted sanctions both for American companies and for foreign companies.
• Encouragement through Incentives
  The United States has more leverage than many think over Iran through incentives that could encourage Iran’s leadership to abandon extremism and comply with international rules. As president, Edwards will draw Iran into compliance through incentives including increased refinery capacity, modification of the embargo, membership in multilateral organizations, and the creation of a fuel bank.
• Direct Negotiations with China and Russia
  China and Russia both recently voted with the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. As president, Edwards will reach out to China and Russia to work on reaching their economic objectives through alternatives that do not assist Iran’s military nuclear capability.

HIV/AIDS

John Edwards was the first presidential candidate – Democratic or Republican – to take on the big insurance and drug companies and propose a plan for quality, affordable health care for every man, woman and child in America that offers everyone the option of a public plan. Today, John Edwards builds on his plan for true universal health care with specific proposals to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS at home and around the world. He will include a comprehensive new national strategy to fight HIV/AIDS, including:
• Guaranteeing health insurance for every American – including HIV/AIDS patients — the care they need when they need it and expanding Medicaid to cover HIV-positive individuals before they reach later stages of disabilities and AIDS.
• Fighting the disease in the African American and Latino communities, where the harm is now greatest.
• Calling for universal access to HIV/AIDS medicine across the world, investing $50 billion over five years to meet that goal.
• Changing the policies that protect big drug companies, at the expense of people dying of HIV/AIDS in developing countries.

• Fighting HIV/AIDS At Home
  HIV/AIDS is still a crisis in America, particularly in African-American and Latino communities. The number of new HIV infections in the U.S. has not fallen in 15 years. As president, Edwards will help end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America. [CDC, 2005]
• Guaranteeing Treatment for Everyone with True Universal Health Care by 2012
  People with HIV/AIDS who don’t have health insurance or who have inadequate insurance are significantly more likely to die from the disease. That’s the tragedy of the two health care systems in this country today – one for people who can afford the very best care and one for everyone else. True universal health care must be the foundation for a national HIV/AIDS strategy. Edwards’ plan will ensure every person in America living with HIV/AIDS gets the care they need, when they need it. His plan will also transform chronic care with a new patient-centered “medical home” approach where a primary care physician will make sure patients are getting effective treatment from a coordinated team, including palliative care. [Bhattacharya, 2003]  Edwards supports the Early Treatment for HIV Act which will expand Medicaid to cover HIV-positive individuals in every state before they reach later stages of disability and AIDS. Currently, in most states, individuals must receive an AIDS diagnosis to receive services under Medicaid even though research shows that the sooner individuals living with HIV receive treatment the better the outcomes. [Porco et al., 2004]
• Creating a National HIV/AIDS Strategy
  In 2001, the CDC set a national goal of reducing the annual number of new infections in half by 2005, but the actual number of infections has barely budged. A 1998 presidential initiative set a goal of eliminating racial disparities in HIV/AIDS by 2010, but disparities are as bad today as they were then. Our disappointments can be explained in part by the failure to create a national strategy, backed by necessary funding and with clear and bold goals, specific action steps, real accountability and broad participation and buy-in from stakeholders both inside and outside of government. As president, Edwards will develop a National HIV/AIDS Strategy through an honest, comprehensive and fast-tracked process that involves stakeholders from the public and nonprofit sectors. The National Strategy will coordinate the various agencies within and outside of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that affect HIV/AIDS policy. He will hold his HHS Secretary accountable for issuing an annual report on HIV/AIDS that charts progress towards our national goals, and he will appoint a strong director of the White House office of AIDS Policy to keep these issues visible at the highest levels of government. [CDC, 1999, 2001, 2007; HHS, 1998]
• Focusing on Disparities
  About two-thirds of all new HIV/AIDS cases are diagnosed in African Americans and Latinos. African Americans are infected at nearly 10 times the rate, and Latinos at more than three times the rate, of white Americans. A 2005 study of African-American men who have sex with men in selected cities found that almost half are infected with HIV, and 67 percent do not know they have the disease. Latina women are six times more likely than white women to have HIV/AIDS. Any serious effort to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic must begin in the African-American and Latino communities, including among the incarcerated population, and address their prevention and treatment needs. We must also continue to work intensively with important overlapping groups like gay men. [CDC, 2007; KFF, 2007]
• Supporting Ryan White CARE Act Programs and HOPWA
  Enacting true universal health care will ensure patients have access to care, but fully funding the Ryan White CARE Act will remain essential to ensure that culturally-competent care is available for the special needs of people living with HIV/AIDS. These programs include outpatient HIV early intervention services, support services like transportation, case management, substance abuse and mental health treatment, nutrition, family-centered care for children, access to clinical trials and delivery to hard-to-reach populations. Maintaining delivery of outreach and treatment services to the LGBT community, for example, is dependent on these programs. Edwards will also put an end to waiting lines for HIV drugs — for example, more than 300 people with HIV/AIDS are on a waiting list for medication in South Carolina – and increase funds for the Housing for People with AIDS (HOPWA) programs, only federal program that provides comprehensive, community-based housing for people with HIV/AIDS. [NASTAD, 2007]
• Preventing HIV/AIDS with Scientifically-Proven Strategies, Not Political Ideology
  The CDC has identified the three most reliable ways to prevent HIV/AIDS infections. Yet the Bush administration focuses on only one of them – abstinence. As president, Edwards will promotes all reliable prevention strategies, including comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education to ensure young people learn all the facts about preventing HIV/AIDS and harm-reduction programs that provide high-risk individuals with access to clean syringes. He will lift the ban on federal funding for needle exchange initiatives. In addition, Edwards will support community and public education that encourages testing. [CDC, Undated; Bush, 2005]
• Strengthening America’s Research Agenda
  It used to be that more than four out of 10 requests for National Institutes of Health grants were approved. Now less than two out of 10 are approved, and existing grants are being cut back. One of those rejected requests might have led to a breakthrough on HIV/AIDS treatments. Edwards supports substantial increases in funding for the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, including for microbicides, as well as measures to ensure transparency in funding decisions, accountability for results and aligning research with outcomes. [NIH, 2007]
• Fighting HIV/AIDS Around The World
  While the Bush administration initially increased funding for the global fight against HIV/AIDS, funding has now flat-lined. We must do more, and do it better. The fight against HIV/AIDS is a fight for people’s lives, but President Bush’s way has us fighting with one hand tied behind our back. One-third of prevention funding goes to abstinence-only education that has been shown not to work. The U.S. has also refused to fund medicine approved by the World Health Organization, even though requiring FDA approval means the U.S. sometimes pays up to three times more for drugs. This means fewer people receive treatment, as the profits of drug companies are protected. [Goldberg, 2007; Carpenter, 2007; Love, 2007]  To restore our moral standing in the world, Edwards believes that America must be a global leader in the fight against poverty and disease. Fighting global poverty and addressing global health crises is a moral imperative, but it is also a security issue. As president, John Edwards will fundamentally transform America’s approach to the world and bring high-level attention to the fight against global HIV/AIDS by:

1. Providing Universal Access to Treatment Globally
   A $4 dose of medicine can help prevent a mother from transmitting HIV to her newborn at childbirth. In developing countries, HIV/AIDS medications cost as little as $140 per patient a year – but, by mid-2006, fewer than one in four people who needed it had access to treatment. As part of a comprehensive plan to also fight TB and malaria around the world, Edwards has set an ambitious goal of providing universal access to preventive and treatment drugs for the three “killer diseases” by 2010, investing $50 billion over five years to meet that goal. This includes fulfilling our moral responsibility to help strengthen public health systems and health care workforces in developing nations. While we can make current spending go further by being more aggressive with the pharmaceutical industry, Edwards will ensure the U.S. contributes its traditional fair share toward the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has proven itself as an innovative, effective model to fight disease. [UNICEF, 2005; U.N. Millennium Project, 2005; WHO, 2007]
2. Using Trade Policy to Save Lives
   Edwards will enact trade policies that save lives, rather than protect the profits of big drug companies. He will ensure that U.S. bilateral trade agreements respect the rights of countries to access and use generic medicines consistent with the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. We must expand poor countries’ right to safe, affordable generic drugs to treat HIV/AIDS. The increased distribution of generic drugs has been a step in the right direction. However, as millions of people develop resistance to these drugs, we must be prepared to facilitate access to more effective medications. As president, Edwards will support efforts to increase the importation and production in developing countries of second-line and pediatric drugs. He will also re-assess the Bush policy that forces us to pay higher prices for drugs that have been approved by the FDA, when less expensive drugs have already been approved by the WHO and their safety is reliable. WHO safety standards are relied upon by leading international organizations, including the Global Fund.
3. Expanding the Role of Multilateral Organizations
   America’s reluctance to engage the world through multilateral organizations under President Bush has hurt our ability to combat poverty and fight HIV/AIDS. Edwards believes multilateral institutions like the Global Fund can be far more efficient at using taxpayer dollars than bilateral agencies like the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, with far lower overheads. As president, Edwards will support efforts to increase the role of multilateral institutions like the Global Fund in distributing funds to fight HIV/AIDS, rather than just bilateral aid agencies and their contractors.
4. Rescinding the Global Gag Rule
   In 2001, President Bush signed an executive order barring U.S. family planning aid to foreign non-profits that offer abortions, except in the case of a threat to a woman’s life or incest, that provide abortion counseling or that lobby to make abortion legal. This “gag rule” stifles free speech and forces non-profits to choose between vital U.S. funds and providing essential health services. The “gag rule” has hurt efforts to ensure access to contraception methods that can prevent the spread of HIV. Edwards will overturn this order and restore support for effective family planning.
5. Creating a Cabinet-Level Post on Global Poverty
   Despite its importance to our national security and international standing, America still lacks a comprehensive strategy to fight global poverty. Our foreign aid programs are fractured and uncoordinated, delivered by over 50 separate government offices. As a result, bureaucrats fight over overlapping jurisdictions and resources are not tied to any government-wide priorities. As president, Edwards will create a new cabinet-level position that will coordinate global development policies across the federal government and be a voice for the fight against global HIV/AIDS.
6. Promoting Women’s Rights and Universal Education
   Strengthening the rights of women and increasing education will help change social roles that underlie the spread of HIV in many countries. Reducing violence against women and expanding education are both proven means of preventing HIV. Edwards will aggressively support political and economic rights for women where they do not exist and support efforts to reduce violence against women and children. He will also lead the world toward a primary education for every child, endorsing the goal of achieving universal basic education by 2015. As part of a significant increase in overall funding for poverty-focused development assistance, Edwards will lead a worldwide effort to raise $10 billion to fund this cause. [UNAIDS, 2005; World Bank, 2002]
7. Supporting Debt Cancellation
   Debt owed to Western lenders prevents many poor countries from making the kinds of investments in health and education that can help prevent the spread of HIV and other diseases. Edwards will take the next step on debt relief by eliminating bilateral debt owed to the United States by the world’s poorest countries, freeing up resources for these countries to invest in health and education. He will also call on other lender nations and agencies to follow our lead.

Gay and Lesbian Issues

Edwards believes that all couples in committed, long-term relationships should have the same rights, benefits, and responsibilities, whether they are straight couples or same-sex couples. He supports civil unions to guarantee gay and lesbian couples the same rights as straight couples, including inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, equal pension and health care benefits, and all of the 1,100 other legal protections government affords married couples. Edwards supports the full repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. He also believes same-sex families should be treated in the same manner as other families by our immigration laws. Edwards believes the right president could lead the country toward consensus around equal rights and benefits for all couples in committed, long-term relationships and he opposes divisive Constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriages.

• Workplace Discrimination
  Workers should be judged by the quality of their performance, not their sexual orientation or gender identity. While in the Senate, Edwards cosponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. He also believes that stronger enforcement is necessary to prevent employment discrimination by federal agencies.
• Military Service
  Edwards opposes the current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on gays and lesbians serving in our military. The military ought to treat all service members equally and in a way that promotes national security, without regard to their sexual orientation.
• Adoption
  Edwards believes that gay and lesbian parents should be able to adopt children just like any other parents. There are over 120,000 children waiting for homes in our nation’s foster care system. Adoption placements should be decided by judges and adoption agencies based upon the best interests of the children. Both members of a same-sex couple raising children together should be able to form a legal relationship with their children.
• Hate Crimes
  Everyone is entitled to live in dignity without fear of violence. We should strengthen the ability of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute hate crimes based on race, gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability or gender identity. While in the Senate, Edwards cosponsored legislation to give law enforcement agencies the tools they need to investigate and prosecute hate crimes.

Healthcare Reform

John Edwards has a bold plan to transform America’s health care system and provide universal health care for every man, woman and child in America.
Under the Edwards Plan:
• Families without insurance will get coverage at an affordable price.
• Families with insurance will pay less and get more security and choices.
• Businesses and other employers will find it cheaper and easier to insure their workers.
The Edwards Plan achieves universal coverage by:
• Requiring businesses and other employers to either cover their employees or help finance their health insurance.
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