Former Democratic presidential candidate and civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton joined Barack Obama’s effort to make sure the Democratic presidential primary votes of 2.3 million Democrats in both Florida and Michigan do not count.

“I firmly believe that changing the rules now, and seating delegates from Florida and Michigan at this point would not only violate the Democratic party’s rules of fairness, but also would be a grave injustice.”
[Rev. Al Sharpton - 02-14-08]

The right of every American’s vote to be counted when selecting who will lead our nation as President is one of the most precious constitutional rights we have. It’s a right many of our brave armed service members gave their lives to protect.

So why is Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama saying “No, You Can’t!” to more than 2.3 million Democratic voters in Florida and Michigan who voted in Presidential primaries? The answer is simple. Obama believes the constitutional rights of Democrats in Florida and Michigan should come second to the will of the Democratic National Committee in Washington.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama honored their agreements to not campaign in both states. In the absence of television ads and typical campaign noise that litters the political landscape, an unprecedented, historic record number of Democratic voters turned out to the polls and casted their votes for the person they believe will rise to the difficult challenges our country now faces.

Rather than stand up to his own national party’s attempt to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan voters, Obama first sided with the DNC and now suggests he wants a do-over. His personal preference is to completely scrap the votes that were cast and replace the primary process with caucuses. Obama’s choices are not sitting well with millions of Democrats who remember Republican attempts to stop counting the votes for President in Florida’s 2000 election. A U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore to stop the vote count led to one of the worst Presidencies in American history.

If Obama is not willing to stand up to his own party when his own party is wrong, how can we expect him to translate hope into political reality in Washington?

Here is what Americans are saying about the DNC’s attempt to disenfranchise 2.3 million voters in Florida and Michigan.

“The Obama campaign miscalculated on this issue and should have stood with Michigan and Florida given their strong African American populations. Had Obama won these states, I am sure many people would be supporting this change in the rules.”
[NAACP Chairman Julian Bond]

“You can’t undo an election with a caucus, and especially you can’t undo an election where 1.7 million Florida Democrats have gone to vote in a secret ballot and replace it with a caucus that maybe 50,000 people would show up. It’s a basic underpinning of our democracy, and it is a basic underpinning of a constitutional right to vote and to have that vote counted.”
[FL Senior Sen. Bill Nelson]

“I think that the people of Michigan and Florida spoke in a very convincing way, that they want their voices and their votes to be heard. The turnout in both places was record-breaking and I think that that should be respected.”
[Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton]

If Democrats want to indulge in a bare-knuckled credential fight from which only the other party can benefit, that is certainly their right — and well within the party’s kamikaze tradition.
[Time to fix state’s primary mess - Miami Hearld editorial - 02-15-08]

“They do not support a do-over caucus in Michigan, and the delegates and superdelegates in Michigan and Florida should not count.”
[Michiganders For Obama Coordinator Christina Montague]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says the votes of more than 2.3 million Democratic votes cast in both the Florida and Michigan primaries should not count in the party’s selection of the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Pelosi had one more stunner in the interview: She said the Florida and Michigan delegates should not be seated if those delegates would decide the nomination.

“Well, I don’t think that any states that operated outside the rules of the party can be dispositive of who the nominee is. That is to say they can’t make the difference because then we would have no rules,” she said.
[Pelosi: Don’t overrule the voters - San Francisco Chronicle - 02-15-08]

Last February, when Democrats wanted to know where Barack Obama stood on solutions, his response was a promise to avoid specifics, details and plans over the next two years:

“There are those who don’t believe in talking about hope. They say, ‘Well, we want specifics, we want details, and we want white papers, and we want plans.’ We’ve had a lot of plans, Democrats. What we’ve had is a shortage of hope. And over the next year, over the next two years, that will be my call to you.”

A year later, Obama is wooing crowds of first time voters with speeches loaded with strawmen he successfully knocks down to cheering crowds. It’s a technique mastered in the 2000 and 2004 elections by President George Bush. One of President Bush’s most popular strawman arguements with himself: “They say we can’t win the war on terror.” Nevermind that his real opponents never said that and that it was actually something he himself said.

“I don’t think you can win it,” Bush said in the interview on NBC’s Today show. “But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.”
[Bush: ‘I don’t think you can win’ war on terror - St. Petersberg Times - 08-31-04]  

Bush preferred fighting a fake no one over having to fight Al Gore and John Kerry on policy. Strawman arguements helped distract voters from the issues and a debate over real solutions. The results? We got a President whose policies plunged our nation into record deficit spending, the biggest government in American history and unprecedented foreign policy disasters. All because we never debated policy.

Obama is the kind of speaker that inspires and stirs passion in voters. His speaking style connects with people in much the same way President Bill Clinton does. The Democratic party is very fortunate to have him as a candidate for President. But when it’s time to talk real solutions, Obama has a problem rooted in inexperience.

Watch this clip from a November Democratic debate in which Obama is asked whether he supports giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens. In part of his non-answer, Obama says, “If we keep on getting distracted with this issue, then we are not solving it.” His attempt to answer is so bad that the CNN moderator demands an answer as the audience reacts with applause. With still no apparent answer, Blitzer asks all candidates where they stand. What was Hillary’s answer? One word: NO. When Obama takes yet a third attempt, the audience reacts with laughter, and he finally stumbles his way to an answer: YES.

After the past 7 years under President George Bush, America deserves a President who can deliver real solutions to the challenges our great nation faces. Despite Obama’s assertion that Democrats don’t want specifics, plans, or details, the fact is we demand them from our next President. With both Democratic candidates in a virutal tie with delegates (not counting Florida and Michigan), it’s time to deliver.

Someone please get that lady out of the FEMA trailer.

Here is a copy of the racist flier distributed in Tennessee’s 9th District from the Rev. George Brooks.

“Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and the JEWS HATE Jesus.” That’s what a flier warns voters in Memphis. The racist and anti-semitic flier was written by African-American minister Rev. George Brooks here in Murfreesboro, TN to help Steve Cohen’s African-American opponent, Nikki Tinker, in an upcoming election in Tennessee’s 9th District.

Circulated by an African-American minister from Murfreesboro Tenn., which isn’t even in Cohen’s district, the literature encourages other black leaders in Memphis to “see to it that one and ONLY one black Christian faces this opponent of Christ and Christianity in the 2008 election.”
[Jewish Rep. Cohen Battles Antisemitism and Racism In Re-Election - WashingtonPost - 02-13-08]

The flier is the product of an African-American minister from the Middle Tennessee town of Murfreesboro. Rev. George Brooks said he distributed it because the 9th District is “about 90-something percent black.” (The actual figure is close to 60 percent.) Does the Tinker campaign agree with the Anti-Defamation League that the document “attempts to incite tension” between African-Americans and Jews? They aren’t saying.
[Race-baiting in the 9th - Commerical Appeal - 02-13-08]

It’s up to the 9th District of Tennessee to decide if hate and racism best represents them in the U.S. Congress, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and let anyone win on such a disgraceful platform.

Until Nikki Tinker publicly and specificly admonishes the racism and hate in this flier, and especially the man who created it, I urge bloggers across the state to help fund Steve Cohen’s campaign. I am pledging $100 today. 

And let’s not forget the person who is ultimately responsible for injecting racism and hate into Tennessee politics: Rev. George Brooks. I don’t know enough about the guy, but all of you will know as much as I learn over the coming months.

UPDATE 02-15-08 3:18pm - $100 pledge fulfilled. Now, on to getting to know our friend the Rev. George Brooks.