May 12, 2008
A Special Message from Pittsburgh on the 2008 Presidential Election Campaigns
In a recent meeting of the International Executive Board, concerns were raised about the media’s ongoing attempts to sensationalize and mischaracterize the contest between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic Party presidential nominee. Most disturbing have been attempts to define working people’s voting decisions in this contest as somehow racially based, while completely ignoring the fact that for years Senator McCain and many of his Republican colleagues have treated all working people with complete disdain, whether those workers are white, Black, Hispanic or otherwise. Shouldn’t that be the issue for 2008, and not this absurd and unfair focus on race and sometimes on religion?
There is a lot of talk that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now fated to lose the Democratic nomination and should pull out of the race. We believe it is her right to stay in the fight and challenge Senator Barack Obama as long as she has the desire and the means to do so. That is the essence of democracy, and of the Democratic Party process.
But we believe just as strongly that Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake — for herself, her Party and for the nation — if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones.
America needs a clean break from eight catastrophic years of George W. Bush, and it needs it now. And so far, Senator John McCain is shaping up as simply the “Bush Sequel” – with more war in Iraq, even more tax cuts for the rich while the middle class struggles mightily, and courts packed with even more right-wing activists intent on undoing decades of progress in civil rights, civil liberties and other vital areas. The Democratic Party must field the most effective and vibrant candidate it possibly can. And more attack ads and squabbling will not help achieve that goal.
The IEB feels, therefore, that we need to make it absolutely clear to our staff and local leadership that both Democratic candidates would be far superior advocates for the rights of working people and their families than Senator McCain, and to make it equally clear that neither Democrat should urge a choice based on the race or the age of working-class voters. All workers have a common need to be represented better than they have been by George Bush or will be by John McCain, whether he or she is a retiree, a worker in one of our facilities, or one of the fine young men and women fighting right now to protect our nation.
It’s bad enough that John McCain’s supporters are already engaged in the politics of divide and conquer, especially if Senator Obama is the Nominee, which now seems likely. These destructive Republican tactics are deeply troubling and completely unfair, as Senator Obama’s grandparents, who raised him during much of his youth, fought in World War II and worked honorably in manufacturing jobs to support their family. And they are deeply troubling because the Senator has pledged his own undying allegiance to our country and to working-class Americans, and because of his outspoken commitment to a vibrant middle class which grows from the bottom up and which recognizes that when it comes to economic policies and trade, American workers must come first.
Dividing working people along racial and ethnic lines is the oldest and meanest game in the book, and it is the one the Republicans are already using to distract attention from the fact that Senator McCain has made it abundantly clear that he offers nothing more than a continuation of the Bush administration’s sorry record of relentlessly assaulting the well-being and interests of working people and of our nation’s unions.
John McCain is proposing a health care “plan,” for example, that is a health care industry-driven rehash of the approach that employers have been trying to shove down our throats for years in bargaining – and he is doing it with the full support of Bush and their Republican cronies in Congress and the insurance industry. John McCain has never seen a free trade deal that he doesn’t love – and as a candidate he’s already cheerleading for even more of them. He is calling for more Bush-type tax cuts for the wealthy that are creating the worst income inequality the country has seen since 1928. He opposes the Employee Free Choice Act, which Senator Obama supports for all workers, including for part-time and contract employees. John McCain will keep doling out subsidies to big oil. And he (along with Senator Clinton, unfortunately) has pandered to working people’s struggle to pay for rising gasoline prices by calling for a microscopic “gas tax holiday” that will only save working people pennies while robbing our country of the funds needed to rebuild our failing infrastructure – which is just one of the job-creating functions that our government should be investing in instead.
Given these troubling circumstances, the IEB urges all staff and local leadership to share Senator McCain’s vicious anti-worker record with our members, and to encourage them to understand that media attempts to sensationalize differences among working people based on race, ethnicity or religion will only distract us from the real need to change our nation’s policies on health care, trade, workers’ rights, energy and foreign affairs. Getting that message out immediately to all our members and supporters is crucial, and we must not let either the last few days of the Democratic primary process or the everyday McCain lies rob us of the chance to end the Bush assault on us, our union and our families.
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Early Years
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, where he grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British.
Barack's mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in small-town Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression, and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton's army. Her mother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii.
It was there, at the University of Hawaii, where Barack's parents met. His mother was a student there, and his father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams in America.
Barack's father eventually returned to Kenya, and Barack grew up with his mother in Hawaii, and for a few years in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New York, where he graduated from Columbia University in 1983.
The College Years
Remembering the values of empathy and service that his mother taught him, Barack put law school and corporate life on hold after college and moved to Chicago in 1985, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment.
The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics.
He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he became the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Political Career
It has been the rich and varied experiences of Barack Obama's life - growing up in different places with people who had differing ideas - that have animated his political journey. Amid the partisanship and bickering of today's public debate, he still believes in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose - a politics that puts solving the challenges of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and political gain.
In the Illinois State Senate, this meant working with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided over $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state. He also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.
In the U.S. Senate, he has focused on tackling the challenges of a globalized, 21st century world with fresh thinking and a politics that no longer settles for the lowest common denominator. His first law was passed with Republican Tom Coburn, a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent. He has also been the lead voice in championing ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption in Congress.
As a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Obama has fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with Republican Dick Lugar to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world. And knowing the threat we face to our economy and our security from America's addiction to oil, he's working to bring auto companies, unions, farmers, businesses and politicians of both parties together to promote the greater use of alternative fuels and higher fuel standards in our cars.
Whether it's the poverty exposed by Katrina, the genocide in Darfur, or the role of faith in our politics, Barack Obama continues to speak out on the issues that will define America in the 21st century. But above all his accomplishments and experiences, he is most proud and grateful for his family. His wife, Michelle, and his two daughters, Malia, 9, and Sasha, 6, live on Chicago's South Side where they attend Trinity United Church of Christ.
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