The Junior Senator from Illinois has been making tons of news recently. Showing that his candidacy is more than just the media concoction that some have claimed, Barack Obama is making several major statements with his actions and as his words.
Sen. Obama stated recently that every American should have universal health coverage within six years. He says that whether he is President or not, the next person to occupy the White House should make it one of their top priorities. While most, if not all, of the Democratic candidates for President also favor universal health care, Obama is clearly laying down the gauntlet on the issue.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is planning on meeting with various presidential candidates to decide whether or not they're addressing issues that he believes are important to black and urban communities. Many felt that the conventional wisdom was that Obamas entrance into the race would deter Sharpton from entering himself. But apparently he's met with Obama and did not come away very impressed. In the 2004 race, Sharpton didn't even have an impact in heavily African American areas like South Carolina. And Hillary continues to be very popular among that voting bloc, even with Obama in the mix. If Rev. Sharpton runs and gets more than 2% in any state, I'd be shocked.
With John Kerry's presidential campaign now history, many of his top people are migrating to the Obama camp. Also hollywood money that Hillary Clinton expected to have a monopoly on is being raised for Obama in droves. Big-time Democratic donors Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen are holding a fundraiser expected to pull in BIG bucks. Katzenberg has openly endorsed Obama, while Spielberg has been a big supporter of Hillary Clinton in the past.
Meanwhile, in more net-related news, a college student from Missouri Western State University has started a group on Facebook called One Million Strong for Barack. The group was only started 10 days ago and they've already hit the 100,000 mark. Their plan is 1,000,000 by Feb. 5. While it remains to be seen if Facebook can be as effective as say, Meetup.com, that's an incredibly impressive number for such a short amount of time.
Feel free to email me if you have any questions about where it is on campus. I know I will be there as well as some other Mason students who are involved in the blogosphere.
His "innovative" proposal was to put medical records online, and he called making the poor and middle class uninsured BUY their OWN health insurance from for-profit entities with no help under pain of losing their individual income tax exemptions, as is being done in Massachusetts and California, an "interesting" idea!
We invite you --- I invite you --- to read our lead article, titled "Barack Obama -- Hypocrisy on Health Care" in which we trace how the junior senator's position on universal health care as devolved from his willingness in former days to be seen as a champion of medical care as a human right (he sponsored the Bernardin Amendment in the IL state senate which said exactly that) to his present stance as the timid pusher of failed "market-based" solutions.
It's at http://www.blackagen...
We think it significantly advances the discussion around Obama and health care.