Trish Calls It: RIP Obama 2008

What a way to go down - torn apart by the very "race card" he decried. Instead of taking the opportunity to bring together all races, Barrack Obama chose to rally a single race and make everyone hear the "reasons".

That's too bad - because I did think he had a lot of great things going for him and at one point, I did think he would become the next American president. My wife soured on him as soon as the race card came up. I had mentioned in private conversations when he would be asked about his relationships with his pastors, etc (who were on record, if not on YouTube, with their commentary and beliefs) and how his response would define his candidacy.

But here was the great opportunity - address this issue and then make it about everyone, not just blacks. Instead, he chose to address it and then launch into an explanation of what blacks have gone through and then how it immediately impacts him.

Don't get me wrong - very nice speech - if you were giving it to the NAACP or to a country made up of exclusively black/white and you were a civil rights leader. But not if you're running for president.

Here are the ways I thought he could have saved it:

1. Include other races. Don't take 30 minutes explaining the black experience. Spend 10 minutes and then go on and talk about how the "race" experience or the "gender" experience is not what America is supposed to be about (remember - he's about Change). Include every race. No - you can't speak from experience but remember that Japanese went through a persecution after WWII, Hispanics are just as angry about their "experience" and we can't even start to talk about how Muslims or Asians are attacked. Heck, turn it into an economic message about how if something isn't done, the "American" (white, black, red, brown, green) experience is going to be much of the same. What a great opportunity to pull everyone together and talk about how you are the one candidate who can bring everyone together.

2. Joe Scarborough had a great line this morning - "you don't throw your grandmother under the bus". While I'm not sure if he effectively did it, he DID put his grandmother and pastor in exactly the same grouping in his family unit. ("I can't disown...sooner than disown..."). And then he put the entire black community in there as well. You know - you CAN disown anyone. Should Russians disown Stalin? Austrians Hitler? Barrack, you're not the second coming - you're running for office. No one wants to hear "religious platitudes" that essentially cements the hypocrisy of almost all religious movements. If you want to be a preacher, there's a different primary process.

I may have only had two points, instead of more. That's primarily because he had the opportunity to snatch victory from defeat - and instead, all he's done is:

a) ensured that if he wins the Democratic primary, that the final vote will swing to McCain because he's alienated a huge number of voters.
b) if he doesn't win the primary, ensure that McCain will win because Clinton is just not liked outside of the Democratic party and Republicans are the ones who have helped her get this far in the primary.
c) made his pastor proud because he DID talk about what it was "like to be a n*gger."
d) did I say alienate a lot of people?

Instead of showing he was a politician who could arise above the frey and bring about a new "American" agenda , he has shown himself to be a candidate who IS very much part of a community that wants to bring its own agenda.

I'm disappointed.

Sweden's Policy on Prostitution is misguided

Our local paper had an article about how since the Spitzer fiasco (on a separate note, shouldn't the NY state have changed their web site by now?), some people are referring to how Sweden charges the "johns" but protects the actual prostitutes (oh sorry, are they "escorts" now?) as being victims ("I'm going to charge you $5,000 an hour to fund my music career but oh, I'm a victim")

This is totally off-base. Are drug dealers "victims" but drug users criminals?

While I can appreciate some countries approach on trying to provide a solution on prostitution, Sweden definitely has it wrong.