A New Terror Threat?

2 01 2010

“A New Terror Threat?” The Root, 26 December 2009.

What the Nigerian plane bomber reveals about Africa, America and terror in the 21st century.

On Christmas Day, a clatter, a puff of smoke and a brief, terrifying flame: Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, had allegedly tried to blow up his airplane. Others aboard the airliner quickly subdued the man, a former University College of London student who claims to have ties to Al-Qaeda and been supplied with explosives from Yemen. The plane landed safely in Detroit, where Mutallab was treated for third degree burns, and where federal police officially charged him with attempting to destroy the jet.

Airport security increased dramatically in several airports in the United States and in Europe as a result of the incident. But this latest botched act of terrorism has wider implications: it raises important questions about sources of new threats to the West, the actual level of U.S. competence in guarding against terror, and yet another American effort to build an important relationship with a fragile, unstable country.

Scrutiny has focused on Muhammad Murtallah International Airport in Lagos, from which Mutallab departed on Christmas Eve. As recently as Thanksgiving 2009, the Nigerian airport was deemed compliant with air safety protocols set by the American Transportation Security Administration and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Association—though over the last decade, it has been intermittently placed on TSA watchlists as one of the least secure airports in the world. Mutallab did not undergo secondary security screening at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam before boarding his flight for the U.S.

Since the failed bombing, reportedly involving PETN, a highly volatile explosive, Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Yemen have claimed credit for training Mutallab—though no U.S. government officials have confirmed those connections. Nevertheless, authorities have called the incident “an attempted terrorist attack”, and president Barack Obama is “actively” monitoring the situation as it develops, according to the White House.

It’s not clear that Mutallab’s actions represent an Al-Qaeda comeback. But the suspect’s Nigerian connections introduce African affairs into what has been seen, since 9/11, as a primarily Middle Eastern threat.

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Categories : Abroad, Africa, America, Europe, Religion

Our Bodies, Our World

30 09 2009

“Our Bodies, Our World,” Democracy, September 2009.

The fight for reproductive righs extends far beyond America’s shores.

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The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World
By Michelle Goldberg • Penguin Press • 2009 • 272 pages • $25.95

On the third day of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Senator Tom Coburn asked, “Do you believe that the court’s abortion rulings have ended the national controversy over this issue?” Sotomayor was curt: “No.” Coburn went further: “You don’t have to name them, but do you think there are other similarly divisive issues that could be decided by the court in the future?” A measured Sotomayor again declined to get specific. “That, I can’t answer,” she said. “I can only answer what exists. People are very passionate about the issues they believe in.”

From the May assassination of Dr. George Tiller, a provider of therapeutic and late-term abortions in Kansas, to the first of what may be a string of Supreme Court vacancies, reproductive rights have returned to the American political spotlight. The exchange on the Senate Judiciary Committee was one of several involving abortion law during the confirmation hearing, highlighting a still-violatile domestic political debate surrounding how and under what circumstances women reproduce.

Yet according to Michelle Goldberg, nearly the entire conversation about sex, access to contraception, and abortion in America is a shibboleth. The 150 million women of the United States enjoy some of the greatest reproductive freedoms on the planet. Eighty percent of the world allows abortion in only the first 12 weeks of pregnancy; the United States permits therapeutic abortions until the sixth month. Three quarters of American women use modern birth control to plan their families, while in many countries birth control is inaccessible, if not illegal. Women abroad suffer under restrictions on their reproductive choices, including cultural stigma against condom use.

Ironically, Goldberg points out in The Means of Reproduction, it is the United States that exercises extraordinary and often restrictive control over the rest of the world’s ability to promote women’s health and family planning–not least because it is the largest funder of family planning programs worldwide. The current administration will give $545 million this year for such efforts to the United Nations Population Fund (also known by its French acronym, UNFP) and other international bodies. Indeed, while dramatic, the dispute between Coburn and Sotomayor over the threatened but consistent protections of Roe vs. Wade obscures a 30-year proxy war that’s produced catastrophic outcomes for women outside the United States.

Religion has played a particularly destructive role. Goldberg, a journalist who has written on feminism and religion, unpacks the workings of a new alliance between religious conservatives around the world that aims to shred reproductive freedoms for women. American Protestants and Latin American Catholics join with the Mormon church, and Iranian clerics join with the Holy See, to prosecute a moral crusade for chastity, one that, in the age of international law and globalized culture, has become a high-stakes geopolitical fencing match.

“The globalization of the culture wars,” writes Goldberg, “was revealing something important about the significant fissures dividing the world. Religious rivalries . . . masked an equally important polarization, both inside of countries and among them, between secular, liberalizing cultures and traditional, patriarchal ones.” The longstanding conflict over women’s bodies, she concludes, shows this particular clash of civilizations in high relief. And unlike traditional conceptions of grand strategy, it has never been a fight between East and West, left and right, or rich and poor. Instead, it is “a battle between a cosmopolitan network of reproductive rights activists and an equally cosmopolitan network of religious conservatives.”

Goldberg reports from the front lines of this genteel but deadly conflict, describing sex and fertility as pressure points critical to reshaping the global conversation on not just women’s rights but the entire global economy. Allowing women access to reproductive choices, she asserts, is central to the cause of international development: “Underlying diverse conflicts–over demography, natural resources, human rights, and religious mores–is the question of who controls the means of reproduction.”

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Categories : Abroad, Africa, America, Culture, History, Politics, Religion, Women

“Tough Love From The Father-in-Chief”

19 06 2009

“Tough Love From the Father-in-Chief,” The Root, 19 June 2009.
Barack Obama, whose father abandoned him when he was barely two years old, has come out swinging on male “responsibility” this Father’s Day.

Was2410613President Barack Obama kicks off the Father’s Day weekend with a string of events designed to “begin a national conversation on responsible fatherhood and healthy families,” according to the White House.

Much like first lady Michelle Obama’s March celebration of women’s empowerment, the day of bro-mance hits eight Washington-area nonprofits that mentor young men, and featurez teams of celebrities, businessmen, lawmakers and White House staff that range from Obama aide Reggie Love to Motorola CEO Greg Brown to DeWayne Wade of the Miami Heat.

Most of the White House ambassadors are black. And all of them will touch on the themes of personal responsibility and engaged fatherhood that have captivated the president since his career-making memoir, Dreams From My Father—and perhaps long before.

Throughout his political career, Obama has demonstrated a special fixation on responsible fatherhood, especially in black community—and this outreach, complete with a town-hall with American dads in the East Room of the White House, is just the most recent example.  Fatherhood is one of the four major, coequal priorities of Obama’s revamped Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. As a senator, Obama, with Sen. Evan Bayh, drafted the still un-passed “Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act,” which streamlines child support payments, provides job training and tax credits to fathers, and strengthens child support enforcement practices. And last year candidate Obama, who had only just won the Democratic nomination for president, delivered an admonishing, scripture-laden, pro-parenting Sunday sermon at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago.

There, the politician whose own father abandoned him at an early age urged black men in particular to accept personal responsibility for their lives and families:

“If we are honest with ourselves,” he said, “we’ll admit that… too many fathers also are missing–missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.”

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“Who’s Afraid of Bibi?”

15 06 2009

“Who’s Afraid of Bibi?” The Root, 15 June 2009.

Rep. Donna Edwards and American progressives face down the Israeli Right.

57683100Before Rep. Donna Edwards, of Maryland’s Fourth Congressional district, traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories for the first time in May, she hadn’t thought much about minorities in the Jewish state: “As an African-American woman, I really didn’t have a perception of a significant minority population in Israel, and there is,” she told the Washington Jewish Week, adding that minority rights in Israel are “a work in progress.”

Since returning, she has inflamed some tempers in Washington and in her district, which straddles Montgomery and Prince George’s County, by wading into the debate over Israeli settlements that extend into the West Bank: “Settlements really get in the way of a lasting peace,” she said.

Some members of the Jewish community in her district attacked her for the remark,  which is at odds with the pro-settlement stance of  Israel’s newly elected conservative Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu—reinforced in a recent policy speech. Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told Politico that his organization’s  relationship with Edwards “got off to a rocky start,” and that there was “concern” over her record on issues regarding Israel. “It has really raised eyebrows in the Jewish community,” he said.

Edwards defended her position in an exclusive interview with The Root. Her visit to the Middle East, she maintains, “clarified for me that continued settlement growth and expansion is really an impediment to long-term peace and security in the region.”

Edwards’ articulated stance is in line with the policy that President Barack Obama outlined in his early June speech in Cairo, Egypt. But the bad blood with the Jewish right had been brewing since January, when Edwards, along with 21 other representatives, voted “present” on a nonbinding resolution that backed Israel’s right to defend itself, and condemned Hamas, the extremist political party that has been engaged in a violent struggle with Israel in Gaza for years. It has also fueled rumors that Edwards might face a primary challenge from another black politician with a more conservative stance on Israel.

“I’m not sure how much of the criticism is coming from my district so much as it’s coming from national pro-Israel leadership,” Edwards says.  Jews make up about 15 percent of her constituents. But the cosmopolitan, heavily Democratic, majority-black district also houses a significant Muslim-American community and is among the wealthiest African-American populations in the nation. And Edwards isn’t worried about alienating these voters. “I feel like I very much represent the sentiments of people in my district, who agree with President Obama that the United States needs to play an active and engaged role, and we have to have a much more moderate approach.”

Middle East policy has been a signal priority of the Obama administration, which has made no secret of its aggressive pursuit of a two-state solution in the holy land. But, even as the geopolitics of the region—and U.S. relations with Israel, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other parties—evolve, the Edwards flap, and her measured response to it, illustrate the new dynamics in play on the American political left. In part because of the new tone the president has set on the Israel-Palestine debate, progressives are no longer easily rattled by threats from the Jewish right.

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“Obama Talks Faith at Notre Dame”

20 05 2009

“Obama Talks Faith at Notre Dame,” The Root, 17 May 2009

The president’s appearance at a Catholic university puts abortion in the spotlight.

President Barack Obama spoke at the 164th commencement at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana this weekend. The speech was freighted with political controversy, primarily because Notre Dame is affiliated with the Catholic Church, which uniformly opposes the abortion rights and protections that the president supports. These weeks of tension leading up to the speech held an ironic quality—though many, but not all Catholic Americans are opposed to the woman’s legal right to choose an abortion, Obama had worked with Catholic churches in his early days as a community organizer in Chicago when, as he said with a laugh, “I was really broke and they fed me.”

On the day of the speech, there were only a few dozen protesters out front, and some hecklers in the audience, but the real story seems to be the careful and nuanced way that Obama spoke about religion and American life—particularly when it came to the subject of abortion. Watch:

Recall that during the campaign season, Obama got into hot water with Republican antichoice activists and the religious right for calling questions of fetal life and death “above his pay grade” at a forum with with megachurch pastor Rick Warren and then-candidate John McCain. In Indiana, Obama, sounding more like a preacher than a persident, took on the abortion issue as though it were now part of his job, recounting a story from his 2004 Senate bid, about an antichoice doctor who called him out for intolerance in campaign literature:

After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him and I thanked him. And I didn’t change my underlying position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that—when we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe—that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

That’s when we begin to say, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually, it has both moral and spiritual dimensions.

So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let’s reduce unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women.

I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it _ indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory _ the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

As The Root has reported, Obama’s White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships has flagged “abortion reduction” as one of its key concerns, alongside poverty reduction, promoting responsible fatherhood and fostering interfaith dialogue globally. This new frame, with its focus on “common ground” advances the Bill Clinton-era formulation that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare”—and had its genesis in the planning and scripting of the Democratic platform on faith during last summer’s Democratic National Convention. The updated language, crafted before Denver by political hands like penetecostal minister Leah Daughtry, reflects Democrats’ attempt to retake the political center in what recent polling shows is an incredibly contentious debate. Obama, who has empowered Faith Office Director Joshua Dubois to make dynamic changes to the way faith groups work with Washington, and met last week with House Majority Whip James Clyburn to discuss issues of faith, appears to be taking seriously the notion that faith and works can coexist in government.

Watch more of the president’s speech here:

Dayo Olopade


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Categories : America, Culture, Education, Politics, Religion

“Turkey: Front Door to Middle East Peace?”

7 04 2009

“Turkey: Front Door to Middle East Peace?” The American Prospect, 5 April 2009.

Taking the message of European unity to Turkey, Obama strategically bridges East and West.

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As Barack Obama and his caravan of diplomats, handlers, and hangers-on complete the last leg of his first European tour as president, America’s pied piper has one more gift to bestow. After a week spent in the halls of the United States’ older Atlantic allies, Air Force One landed in the Turkish capital of Ankara today.

Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, did not travel to Turkey until 2004 — and then only for the same annual NATO summit Obama wrapped up in Strasbourg on Friday. Obama only just met Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey last week at the G-20 and European Union summits. That the U.S. president is literally going the extra miles to Turkey speaks volumes about the Obama administration’s determination to honor the Islamist democracy as America’s best bridge to the ever-turbulent Middle East.

The president recently told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that he was “keeping score” when it comes to support for his domestic agenda — and the same could be said of his foreign policy. It’s not just that Turkey, which shares a border with Iraq, has been a crucial partner in basing and troop arrangements during the six-year occupation. (Seventy percent of military supplies in Iraq, from food to ammunition, pass through Turkey, and its air force provides support for the American logistical supply chain in Afghanistan.) Turkey is a bilateral partner in the NATO alliance to which it has belonged since 1952 and a major variable in the energy equation in the Caucasus region it straddles, from the Balkans on the west coast to the Iranian regime directly to its south. Turkey also filled the vacuum left by American diplomatic intransigence during the Bush years, maintaining good relations with Iran, Syria, and even Hamas in Palestine — all while guarding its strong rapport with Israel, with whom it will start performing naval exercises this summer.

Speaking to the Turkish Parliament today, Obama offered effusive praise: “Turkey’s greatness lies in your ability to be at the center of things. This is not where East and West divide — it is where they come together. In the beauty of your culture. In the richness of your history. In the strength of your democracy,” he said.

Having expanded their diplomatic footprint, the Turks perhaps deserve to be bathed in a little of that Obama sunshine. “Turkey has raised the bar for political sophistication in the region,” says Daniel Levy, co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. “They’ve done what the U.S. cannot do,” adds Amjad Atallah, Levy’s co-director at New America. “They’ve shown how you can be Israel’s ally and not support Israel’s occupation. They’re showing Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan how they can be allies of Israel and not support Israel’s excesses.”

But don’t be fooled: This two-city trip will not occasion the Grand Speech to the Muslim World that Obama has pledged to deliver from an Islamic capital in the first year of his presidency. Rather, putting Ankara and Istanbul on the same itinerary as London and Prague sends a clear message about the White House’s support for Turkish integration into the European community — still controversial, both in Turkey and within the EU. Spencer Boyer, director of international law and diplomacy in the national-security program of the Center for American Progress, had recommended that Obama frame any trip to Turkey in a European context, “to demonstrate that the United States considers Turkish membership in the EU and stronger ties to the West to be an important strategic objective.”

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“A Faith-Based Fix”

3 03 2009

“A Faith-Based Fix,” The Root, 2 March 2009

Can Obama’s makeover of Bush’s faith initiative speed the economic recovery?

obama-faithThe first month of Barack Obama’s presidency brought change to all parts to Washington—none more sweeping than the passage of his American Recovery Act, designed to shock the U.S. economy out of its slump. A notable portion of the $787 billion should be coming to communities of color that have been particularly hard hit by the downturn. And one of the key vehicles for getting the money to needy citizens will be Obama’s brand-new Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The president “wants one of the functions of that office to be the implementation of the Recovery Act,” said Melody Barnes, director of Obama’s Domestic Policy Council, where the faith office will be housed. “He’s outlined a few different ways in which he hopes the office will initially be quite helpful, one of them being the connection between the bill and the reality.”

Though the specifics of the distribution have yet to be filled in, lawmakers in heavily black districts are already expressing hope about the boost to religious-based organizations. “There are huge numbers of faith-based organizations that have nonprofit groups that are serving communities, especially in this time of crisis,” said Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland following the Congressional Black Caucus’ first White House meeting with the president. “I think the administration has taken recognition of that.”

Speaking about the faith-based office recently, a senior White House official, who declined to be identified in order to speak more freely about the office, confirmed that “we’ve tasked the office with making sure these groups are plugged into the recovery.”

President Obama ceremoniously scrapped numerous Bush-era programs. And he criticized the Bush faith office during the campaign. But a senior adviser to the Obama campaign on religious affairs said that, from the beginning “[Obama] wanted to reform it, not destroy it.” During a speech in Zanesville, Ohio last July, he praised faith-based groups for fulfilling the Biblical mandate found in Matthew 25: “treating the least of these as [Jesus] would.” Citing his early work with the Catholic Church on Chicago’s South Side, he said, “while these groups are often made up of people who come together around a common faith, they’re usually working to help people of all faiths, or of no faith at all.” The president made much the same point at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Feb. 5, saying: “Whether it’s a secular group advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups providing job training to those who need work, few are closer to what’s happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods than these organizations. People trust them. Communities rely on them. And we will help them.”

There are major differences between Bush’s and Obama’s faith initiatives. While Bush used the office as a key part of his political outreach to evangelicals who were a crucial part of his base, the new president aims to have the office serve far less of a political role. For one, Obama’s will be headquartered in the Domestic Policy Council, instead of as a freestanding entity within the executive branch. And while Bush put in the plumbing, so to speak—setting up a bureaucracy that made it easier for faith-based groups to compete for the federal dollar—the office seems set to play a larger policy role in the Obama White House.

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Categories : America, Politics, Recession, Religion

“Clinton’s Reward to Indonesia”

20 02 2009

“Clinton’s Reward to Indonesia,” The Guardian, 19 February 2009.

Madame Secretary hits the world’s largest Muslim democracy; it won’t be for the last time.

clintonindonesiaHillary Clinton‘s first overseas tour as US secretary of state looks suspiciously like the trips she took as first lady. The eight-day jaunt to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China has featured tea ceremonies, visits to local universities and sessions with young children. But as diplomat-in-chief for President Barack Obama, her travels carry a newfound heft, and the Clinton-led delegation’s landing in Indonesia on Wednesday is further proof that major changes to US foreign policy are afoot.

“It’s no accident that I’m here,” Clinton declared within the first few hours after her arrival in Indonesia. And she’s right. Of course, Obama’s biography – his time spent in Indonesia, his sister’s Indonesian parentage and his interest in connecting with Muslim nations – looms large. His direct inaugural message to Muslims and the granting of an early television interview to Arabic-language station Al-Arabiya were other early signs of engagement.

But choosing Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most-populous country and largest Muslim-majority nation, as the second foreign soil that Clinton visits, suggests the White House views stronger US ties to the country as more than emotionally cathartic. In fact, the nascent Indian Ocean Century places Indonesia at the centre of a new axis of grand strategy.

There are countless reasons to energise relations with China, with its powerhouse economy, Japan, long-time ally of the US and Clinton’s first stop, and South Korea, a key partner in negotiating and resisting North Korean nuclear designs. But the Indonesia-US friendship is particularly vital.

First, Indonesia’s democratic institutions are a dramatic achievement – and all the more remarkable for their youth. In 1997, when Clinton was still first lady, “It was hard to look at Indonesia as a model of success,” says Tom Pepinsky, a professor of government and southeast Asian studies at Cornell University. Indeed, the parliamentary and presidential elections that will take place later this year are an enormous surprise to many observers of the Indonesia’s 1990s transition from autocratic rule under General Soeharto.

“Now that we look like we’re going to have a third round of perfectly free and fair elections, and already have a relatively moderate legislature and moderate president, it seems that [past problems like violent voter suppression] are less of a concern,” says Pepinsky.

While some factions of Islam in Indonesia have become more conservative, the last two elections saw radical Islamic parties receive the least amount of votes, says Vishakha Desai, president of the Asia Society. Voters have elected a female premier and currently support “the most stable and democratically elected government that Indonesia has had,” she adds.

Further, the Indonesian military has abandoned its role as a political agent, which it openly maintained in the Soeharto years. “It is no longer a force for politics,” says Pepinsky, who has authored a study ranking countries with large Muslim majorities that have held elections and found Indonesia at the very top (the next most democratic country was Mali). Clinton’s visit, he adds, is a type of reward for good behaviour and “may signify a desire by the Obama administration to reach out in places where Muslim majority countries got it right.” Clinton will be listening with a keen ear, according to policymakers at the state department, who believe Indonesia’s successes could provide a template for what to do with fledgling democracies (and markets) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Turkey and even Gaza.

Second, the issue of terrorism, still a major concern of the US, from Somalia to Sri Lanka, makes Indonesia a desirable ally. Indonesia has not always responded effectively to the threat of global terrorism. In 2002, just after the bombing in Bali that killed some 200 people, a senior US diplomat was quoted saying: “It is hard to think of another country in the world that has such a potentially big terrorism problem and has done so little to deal with it.”

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“Day of Reckoning”

31 10 2008

“Day of Reckoning,” The Atlantic, 31 October 2008.

Has Barack Obama succeeded in his push to win religious voters?

In May, GOP strategist Dick Morris did his best to gauge the electoral fallout from the then-boiling controversy surrounding Senator Barack Obama and his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Appearing on The O’Reilly Factor, Morris predicted that “this guy, who used to have to convince people he wasn’t a Muslim, now is electable only if he can convince people he never goes to church.” But in the months since, Obama has brushed off this kind of snap analysis and put together a networked, community-based religious outreach plan designed to put the Democratic party on the offense with religious swing voters. Heading into the last days of the race, it looks like this was the right call.

Poll junkies find it natural to focus on the faithful—those “values voters” who are said to have delivered a second term to George W. Bush. For a while this summer, Obama polled like a typical Democrat among this group—which is to say, he polled quite poorly compared to John McCain, who until late summer enjoyed an 18-point advantage among voters who attended church weekly or more. But as the race moves to a close, Obama is doing better than either John Kerry or Al Gore among religious voters: in mid-October the Pew Center released a poll suggesting that white mainline Protestants prefer Obama to McCain by 48-43, and that white Catholics prefer Obama 49-41. (With the same voters, Bush beat Kerry by 10 points and 13 points, respectively.) And, as Morris and others won’t let you forget, Obama is working uphill—against the 12 percent of the country that still believes he is a Muslim.

So what accounts for Obama’s impressive numbers among the collection plate crowd? It doesn’t hurt that the economy is tanking, and that McCain is less than beloved among evangelicals. But showing up is half the battle. The Illinois senator said as much in a debate in South Carolina last January, noting that “when you’re not going to church, you’re not talking to church folk…. It is important for us not to concede that ground.” In 2005, Obama was reportedly the only Democratic senator with a full-time staffer working on faith policy. But under Obama’s direction, the party has increasingly used religion to take a progressive message to the heart of the GOP coalition—an onslaught that may prove decisive in this and future elections.

The first place to look is Denver. At the convention, DNC chairman Howard Dean and his deputy, ordained minister Leah Daughtry, kicked off festivities with the Democrats’ first annual Faith in Action gathering, which was part of a highly choreographed rollout of Obama’s own “Common Ground for Common Good” faith initiative. It was there that nuns and rabbis, Buddhists, Muslims, and countless others made the case for civic unity in a country of diverse faiths. Sean Casey, a prominent evangelical academic who now works for the Obama campaign, told me the meeting is “symbolic of what the Democratic Party stands for. Tens of thousands of faithful people have voted for Democrats,” he added. “We’re not driving wedges, we’re building coalitions.”

Colorado, which is shaping up to be a crucial state on November 4, was an impudent place to stage such an offensive: the town of Colorado Springs is known in some circles as the “Evangelical Vatican;” tearful Denver teens fall out en masse at “Tuesday Night Live” faith revivals; and a “Personhood Amendment” defining life as beginning at fertilization was successfully placed on the ballot for November. Nevertheless, Obama swept through Fort Collins, the site of a large Christian college, on his return from Hawaii last weekend—his fifth trip since May.

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“Like Obama, Dontcha Know”

10 10 2008

“Like Obama, Dontcha Know,” The American Prospect, 9 October 2008.

Minnesota’s 3rd District is playing an off-Broadway version of the national tune.

Minnesotan viewers of the January candidates’ forum with state Senator Terri Bonoff and two other Democratic challengers for the 3rd Congressional District seat could be forgiven for thinking they’d seen this movie before. Bonoff, a two-term state representative with strong institutional backing, found herself in a heated back-and-forth with two male opponents, each determined to take their insurgent candidacy all the way to Washington. The scene, of course, was an off-off-Broadway rendition of the widely watched debate between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, which had taken place in New Hampshire just two weeks prior.

The down and dirtiest line the Illinois senator could muster against Clinton was “You’re likeable enough, Hillary,” but in Minnesota, the insurgent Ashwin Madia — a 30-year-old Iraq War veteran running on a “change” platform — proved more of a pit bull than an Iowa-era Obama: “There are entrenched interests in Washington right now,” he said, with cold emphasis. “Working families need a fighter, someone who’s not afraid to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘No more.’ … That is where I shine.”

Bonoff, seeming to channel Hillary Clinton’s then-frustrations, rejoined haltingly: “I’m a fighter, too,” she said, before stressing her connections and relative longevity as reasons she could beat the Republican candidate. “I know Erik Paulsen, and my record stands up against Erik Paulsen. … In the end you know what? I’m gonna win. I have a lot of friends in the Senate.” Though Bonoff battled to keep up her front-runner’s appearance, as with Clinton, it was no use. “People looked at me and saw Hillary,” she recalls now. “It was very frustrating.” Madia’s fresh face electrified the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party base, and his organizing advantage in district caucuses allowed him to neutralize Bonoff’s lead in, yes, superdelegates, and seize a victory on the ninth ballot at the party’s state convention. (The crowd capped the drama with competing chants of “Terr-reee, Terr-reee,” and “Win-Ash-Win. Win-Ash-Win.”)

*

One month from Election Day 2008, the 3rd District race still looks a lot like the national slugfest in microcosm. Madia is now running hard against Paulsen — a well-liked conservative former state House majority leader — trailing by a slim margin in a district that has gone Republican for nearly 50 years. Paulsen is conservative on social issues, has promised fiscal restraint, and has made conciliatory noises regarding the environment. He’s also well traveled in the Middle East and Asia. (His campaign did not respond to requests for comment.) “He’s honest and people like working with him,” says Bonoff, who now strongly supports Madia and is working for Obama, “but everybody recognizes how conservative his record is. … When it’s time to vote he has stuck with the conservative principles.”

Madia, an attorney of Indian parentage who served tours as a Marine Corps lawyer in Japan and Iraq, has faced his own criticisms about youth and inexperience. One Paulsen supporter says, “I just don’t know why he wouldn’t run for state House right now. His experience level and age are more in line with a state House position.”

Many analyses list the suburban district as host to one of the few genuine “toss up” races — in a toss-up state — which has garnered lots of outside attention and money. Madia has raised nearly $300,000 from the progressive advocacy group Act Blue, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is backing Madia with over $1 million, while the National Republican Congressional Committee has offered special financial assistance to Paulsen. Both candidates are spending heavily into the home stretch.

But Madia (who ran his entire primary campaign without TV ads) is, by most accounts, plain outworking his opposition — criss-crossing the district every week. He is also subverting norms of party and patriotism in a state that’s trending blue, making him a marquee example of the new face of the Democratic Party.

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