IndianaVIE - Voter Initiative and Education in Indiana, PA
Had a great time in Denver, seeing plenty of VIPs - Joe and Jill Biden at the Pennsylvania delegation breakfast, Gov. Ed Rendell, bumping into Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and accidentally getting between him and his wife, Dan Rather and Captain Morgan, and live performances by will.i.am, Sheryl Crow, and Dave Matthews Band.
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Really long days, so don't have time for a real post - but see the link to the right for new photos...
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1:59 AM
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You are invited to the Grand Opening of the Indiana County Democratic Committee and the Campaign for Change Headquarters at 100 South 7th Street - Thursday, August 21st from 4 to 6 p.m.
We should have a great group on hand, come enjoy some delicious refreshments and meet the other supporters and volunteers. Ribbon-cutting ceremony at 5 p.m. Refreshments served (and welcomed).
…---=== 2. Vot er registration at IUP begins Friday ===---…
With IUP students returning this week, we need as many volunteers as possible to register IUP students to vote locally. We registered over 1,000 students in just over a week for the primary election. A record number of 3,355 freshmen are coming to campus, and voter registration launches this Friday.
We're meeting at 9:00am this Friday August 22 in front of the Co-op Store by the Fitness Center. Full days of voter registration will happen every day between August 22 and 29. To sign up for a shift, call Field Organizer Bridget Connolly at 614-578-5344 or sign up for a shift at http://www.indianapadems.org. This is our best opportunity to pick up new voters this fall.
…---=== 3. Democratic National Convention – IUP Watch Party Next Thursday ===---…
The Democratic National Convention runs from August 25 to August 28 in Denver. Watch for the IndianaVIE Blog from the Convention at http://www.indianavie.net.
Watch Obama accept the nomination for President of the United States at the IUP Watch Party – beginning at 8:00pm on Thursday in the Hub's Ohio room.
And watch the full coverage on C-SPAN and primetime coverage on CNN. Some highlights of the week:
Monday
> Barack Obama's sister Maya Soetero-Ng will talk about her brother's
> Michelle Obama will be the headline prime-time speaker.
Tuesday
> Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio and Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania will discuss how the failed policies of the last eight years have left an economy out of balance.
> Sen. Robert P. Cas ey Jr. of Pennsylvania and Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts will share how Obama's policies have been directly shaped by the people he has met as he traveled the country.
> Hillary Clinton primetime speech; nightly theme will be "Renewing America's Promise."
Wednesday
> Former President Bill Clinton will spea k on Barack Obama's commitment to a stronger and safer America as well as the history of Democrats making positive change in the lives of all Americas
> Gov. Bill Richardson and Sens. Evan Bayh, Joe Biden and John D. Rockefeller IV will echo Obama's call for a new direction in national security
> Headline speaker: Obama's vice presidential nominee
Thursday
> Al Gore will address the convention.
> Barack Obama acceptance speech
…---=== 4. Huffington Post: Troops Deployed Abroad Donate Six Times More To Obama ===---…
During World War II, soldiers crouching in foxholes penned letters assuring their sweethearts that they'd be home soon. Now, between firefights in the Iraqi desert, some infantrymen have been sending a different kind of mail stateside: two or three hundred dollars -- or whatever they can spare -- towards a presidential election that could very well determine just how soon they come home.
According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.
Despite McCain's status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.
Full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/14/troops-deployed-abroad-do_n_118902.html
…---=== 5. The Obama Scrapbook ===---…
For Barack's biography, photos of Barack as a young child, and more see the Obama Scrapbook – laid out like a family photo album:
It's a nice personal look into Barack's background and family, including a photo of Barack with his Dad, Barack Obama, Sr.
…---=== 6. Time.com: The Tire-Gauge Solution: No Joke ===---…
How out of touch is Barack Obama? He's so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point; Rush Limbaugh is having a field day; and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled "Barack Obama's Energy Plan" to Washington reporters.
But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Mea nwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.
In fact, Obama's actual energy plan is much more than a tire gauge. But that's not what's so pernicious about the tire-gauge attacks. Politics ain't beanbag, and Obama has defended himself against worse smears. The real problem with the attacks on his tire-gauge plan is that efforts to improve conservation and efficiency happen to be the best approa ches to dealing with the energy crisis — the cheapest, cleanest, quickest and easiest ways to ease our addiction to oil, reduce our pain at the pump and address global warming. It's a pretty simple concept: if our use of fossil fuels is increasing our reliance on Middle Eastern dictators while destroying the planet, maybe we ought to use less.
The RNC is trying to make the tire gauge a symbol of unseriousness, as if only the fatuous believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil without doing the bidding of Big Oil. But the tire gauge is really a symbol of a very serious piece of good news: we can use significantly less energy without significantly changing our lifestyle. The energy guru Amory Lovins has shown that investment in "nega-watts" — reduced electricity use through efficiency improvements — is much more cost-effective than investment in new megawatts, and the same is clearly true of nega-barrels. It might not fit the worldviews of right-wingers who deny the existence of global warming and insist that reducing emissions would destroy our economy, or of left-wing Earth-firsters who insist that maintaining our creature comforts would destroy the world, but there's a lot of simple things we can do on the demand side before we start rushing to ratchet up supply.
We can use those twisty carbon fluorescent lightbulbs. We can unplug our televisions, computers and phone chargers when we're not using them. We can seal our windows, install more insulation and adjust our thermostats so that we waste less heat and air-conditioning. We can use more-efficient appliances, build more-efficient homes and drive more-efficient cars, preferably with government assistance. And, yes, we can inf late our tires and tune our engines, as Republican governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida have urged, apparently without consulting the RNC. While we're at it, we can cut down on idling, which can improve fuel economy another 5%, and cut down on speeding and unnecessary acceleration, which can increase mileage as much as 20%.
And that's just the low-hanging fruit. There are other ways to reduce demand for oil — more public transportation, more carpooling, more telecommuting, more recycling, less exurban sprawl, fewer unnecessary car trips, buying less stuff and eating less meat — that would require at least some lifestyle changes. But things like tire gauges can reduce gas bills and carbon emissions now, with little pain and at little cost and without the ecological problems and oil-addiction problems associated with offshore drilling. These are the proverbial win-win-win solutions, reducing the pain of $100 trips to the gas station by reducing trips to the gas station. And Americans are already starting to adopt them, ditching SUVs, buying hybrids, reducing overall gas consumption. It's hard to see why anyone who isn't affiliated with the oil industry would object to them.
Of course, in recent years, the Republican Party has been affiliated with the oil industry. It was the oilman Dick Cheney who dismissed conservation as a mere sign of "personal virtue," not a basis for energy policy. It was the oilman George W. Bush who resisted effo rts to regulate carbon emissions. And most congressional Republicans have been even more reliable water carriers for the industry's interests.
John McCain has been a notable exception. He is not an oilman; he has pushed to regulate carbon emissions; and he opposed Bush's pork-stuffed energy bill, which Obama supported. He also opposed efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and until recently opposed new offshore drilling. But now that gas prices have spiked, McCain is running for President on a drill-first platform, and polls suggest that most Americans agree with him. It's sad to see his campaign adopting the politics of the tire gauge, promoting the fallacy that Americans are powerless to address their own energy problems. Because the truth is: Yes, we can. We already are.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1829354,00.html
…if you haven't seen it yet, the Obama in 30 Seconds video winner – Obamacan:
Thanks for all you do.
Eric M. Barker
Delegate to the Democratic National Convention, Pennsylvania's 9th Congressional District
.: IndianaVIE - Voter Initiative and Education: http://www.indianavie.net :.
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