"Some people lament privately, others are brave enough to take their call for change to the public arena. Martin Luther King III has done his father's legacy proud this week by courageously insisting that our nation's next leader do something about the poverty that ensnares over 36 million of our citizens. I will answer his call, and tell him and the American people today that I will make the eradication of poverty a top priority of the McCain Administration. A strong and vibrant America, one in which people can move up into the middle-class, put their kids through college, work hard and one day retire in dignity, is critical not only to our economic future but to the very security of our nation. As President, I will set aside the needs of the special interests to advance the interests of the American people, especially those 12 million children who deserve every opportunity to achieve the American Dream."
"After months of frustration about what they see as fawning media coverage of Barack Obama, John McCain's campaign went on the offensive Tuesday with a Web video called 'The media is in LOVE with Barack.'" So opens a Los Angeles Times article last week entitled, "Press coverage of Obama puts envy in the air at McCain headquarters." Yes, McCain is not getting negative press coverage because he makes gaffe after gaffe, it is because the "I Got a Crush on Obama" video was actually a documentary; Obama girl is Katie Couric.
The LAT article continues:
Well this may surprise the McCain campaign and other proponents of liberal bias, but it's actually probably helping McCain. George Mason University's Center for Media and Public Affairs studied the election coverage of the Big Three networks over the six weeks since Clinton dropped out, and Obama has received worse coverage -- 72% of his stories were "negative," as opposed to 57% for McCain. On Fox News Special Report, 79% of stories on Obama were negative. Another reason to be skeptical about liberal media bias.]]>On McCain's plane from New Hampshire to Baltimore on Tuesday, advisor Mark Salter cited analyses by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which studies the fairness of coverage by evaluating campaign articles. The project found Obama had a "distinct advantage" over McCain in the six weeks since Hillary Rodham Clinton left the race. Obama has appeared as a leading newsmaker in 78% of election stories, and McCain in 51%.
Salter joked that he'd moved from anger to resignation. "It is what it is," he said. "I would contend that the facts will show that Obama gets 50% more attention in the news than McCain does, post the primaries. I don't know if that is good or bad for us."
Everyone knows the basic theory of what has happened in urban America (and when I speak of urban America, understand that I am talking about your average Rust Belt city such as Chicago, Philly, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc and your old Sunbelt cities like Atlanta, Miami, and Richmond. Sunbelt cities such as Houston, San Jose, and Phoenix have developed in a completely different way since the 50s, mainly by simply expanding the city limits outward.) over the last half-century. People moved out of the city and into suburban housing, creating the so-called "urban doughnut" (a ring with nothing in the middle). The city suffered its gradual decline for 30 or 40 years.
Around the time that we were born, there was a bit of a redevelopment that occurred. A few trendy neighborhoods began to pop up in these cities, but these were exceptions rather than rules. And by and large, these neighborhoods were in the downtown area, which at the time did not suit residential development, only recreational.
But since the turn of the century, we've seen a great deal of residential development in urban areas. People are starting to stay out in downtown at night, and other neighborhoods have begun to pick up as well. As the article points out, this is not just run of the mill gentrification. There are families moving in to townhouses in formerly working class city neighborhoods.
Now one might say that this is a real estate issue, not a political one. However, real estate is politics. Remember that in the 1950's racial discrimination in suburban housing contributed to the problems of the 70's. Issues of violence, poverty, transportation, and such, become more pressing now. And it's not just urban communities that are seeing a new set of challenges: formally middle class suburbs are seeing rises in section 8 housing, and are seeing conflicts within municipal government on how to provide services to poorer residents (and, interestingly enough, immigrants).
Perhaps the doughnut theory of urban America is obsolete. In its stead, I'd like to offer a new theory: the target theory. A trend is beginning to develop of alternating levels of income in urban regions. In the center, formerly left vacant by the loss of heavy industry, is the newly revitalized and affluent center city, dominated by young urban professionals, singles, and wealthy empty-nesters. The next ring would be the older suburbs, those first populated in the 50's. As gentrification and wholesale revitalization occur, property values increase to the point where working class and poor individuals can no longer afford to live in the inner city, and so move to the city's periphery or the older suburbs. Then comes the wealthy exurban suburbs created by "white flight" and the desire to build McMansions. Finally, on the fringe of urban areas, the quasi-rural (and typically poor) small towns, for whom the flashy development of the downtown is far away. The theory clearly does not hold true for all urban areas, but the aforementioned article is just more proof that, slowly but surely, downtown (or "dauntaun" as we colloquially pronounce it in Pittsburgh) is making a comeback.
]]>Right. And since Obama is clearly the more popular choice in Europe, the large, adoring crowds that greeted him in Germany demonstrated his appeal -- and, perhaps, his potential ability to use that appeal to advance American interests. It's also apparent that the visit helped him domestically. Nate Silver explains how:It matters how America is perceived abroad, and not just because it's nice to be popular. When America and American values are admired in other countries, American politicians have more influence on foreign affairs.
Gallup shows [Obama] ahead by 7 points, tying his best-ever margin in that poll, while Rasmussen has him ahead by 6. What Obama's foreign policy trip may have done, and particularly his speech in Berlin, is to refresh enthusiasm among his core supporters. Fully 60 percent of Democrats now have a very favorable opinion of Obama, according to Rasmussen's latest numbers. That number is improved from 53 percent a week ago. During that time frame, Obama has gained 6 points of support among Democrats, capturing 82 percent of their votes rather than 76. Half of that gain comes from undecided voters, while the other half comes from McCain.]]>
As you open up the "Issues" pages on both candidates' websites, two different trends emerge instantly. Barack Obama has right at the top of his page a "Blueprint for Change", which is essentially the bundeling of about a dozen different position papers. It is almost as if he feels the need to, from the onset, provide some sort of "concrete" plan for enacting his soaring rhetoric. Following the blueprint, the rest of the issues are listed alphabetically (which puts Civil Rights, Defense, and Disabilites as the first three issues). Next to the issue name is a small blue box with a computer generated image to represent the issue. There are 22 issues listed on the page, and there is a dropdown for "additional issues", which holds another six issues. Interestingly enough, the issue page for "women" appears on the dropdown in the toolbar, but not on the issues page itself.
There is no overarching blueprint on John McCain's site. He only lists 16 issues compared to Obama's 29 (including "women" and "additional issues"), a nearly 2:1 disadvantage for McCain. However, McCain's issues are grouped in rows of three, with large stock photographs of majestic mountains, grain silos, and smiling families. His issues are not in alphabetical order, although it is hard to tell precisely what order they are in (the issue list on the toolbar only has 12 issues, and these are listed in a different order than those on the issue page). The first three issues when the webpage opens? The economy, energy, and national security.
Frankly, both of these pages could use some work on them. The linear nature of Obama's website is less appealing, as is his obession with all things blue. Still, the site is organized, clean, and informative. McCain on the other hand, has his work cut out for him. To begin with, even with as few issue links as he has, it feels as though he is making issues up. In an effort at full disclosure, as of this writing, I have not clicked on any of the actual issues for either candidate, so I am basing this solely off of the opening page. But seperate pages for Energy, Climate Change, and something rather vague called "Natural Heritage"? Really, Senator? And why is education the last issue on your list, behind such issue-heavy hitters as "space program" and "agricultural policies"? At least with Obama's alphabetical order, he can't be criticized for picking a bad issue order.
At this point, I am going to shift gears and, instead of criticizing the layout of the issue pages, begin looking at the issues themselves. My focus at first will be the issues that matter most near and dear to me, urban and social policy. I will look at the candidates' proposals on transportation, urban development, housing, poverty/welfare, working families, entitlements, and probably education. These are issues (with maybe the exception of the last two) that almost never see the light of day on the campaign trail (how often have you heard either candidate speak about Amtrak?), but they are extremely important to me, and should be important to everyone living in a metropolitan area (which is nearly everyone). At some point closer to November, after I get some practice in at this, I would like to look at the two social policy issues that do occasionally make it to the evening news, the economy (in a general sense) and health care. I may also look at John McCain's space proposal, just because it sounds kind of neat.
I will be basing my look at these issues only on webpages accessable from the issue pages of the two candidates, as I figure that would be wear the average American would go to find such information. Right off the bat, McCain is at a disadvantage here, because while there are a few pages on Obama's site dedicated to these issues (a page for transportation, a page for poverty, etc.), there are not for McCain. This means that someone looking for information on McCain's urban housing policy would have to page through the issues that he already has and try to find it (I get a sneaking suspicion that he does not have an articulated policy on how to deal with urban blight, though as the Republican nominee, that is his appanage).
The next several weeks will likely read like a list of vague resume verbs, as position papers have a tendency to make the candidate sound like they have an idea of what they are doing, while offering very little in the way of concrete plans. Still, as vague as they are, position papers serve an important purpose: giving political junkies like me something to read in between issues of Mother Jones and the Atlantic Monthly.
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