I too have some reservations about Obama’s Foreign Policy experience and credentials. Hopefully, at some near date he will give a major Foreign Policy Address — I think the usual site is Georgetown — and provide a framework whereby we can see where he is headed, and most important, see where the experienced Foreign Policy and National Security people in Democratic Circles might fit should it appear he will be nominated.

The other day I talked with someone who had spent ten days in Iowa working for Obama along with two of our Congresspersons (I am posting from Minnesota, and the Congresspersons were Betty McCollugh and Keith Ellison who along with our Mayor sponsored the team in Iowa), and apparently there was much speculation that Obama might ask Jim Webb to run with him as VP. Whether that comes from BO or his staff, or just was speculation — don’t know. But it is an interesting idea none the less. The idea is as much electorial (Someone who won a border state, Scotch-Irish background, and has the military credentials Obama lacks) as it is about organizing an executive — but if authoratative, it suggests a direction.

Our Caucuses here in Minnesota are not till February 5, and many of us are just as involved in the second half of the caucus name (Our Senate Candidate — I will be caucusing for Al Franken) as we are in the Presidential Race. We all can “live with” any of the top three, as people put it, so we will just watch New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and all, and firm up a preference later. Personally I wish my first choice, Chris Dodd, had survived in the top tier. but didn’t happen.

But watching what is happening — Obama is going to clean up delegates here in Minnesota — my guess is he will get at least 2/3rds of the delegates as things stand now. Hillary just doesn’t have strong positive support, that is, she hasn’t given the long term party activists — the people who organize the caucuses and then the campaigns, a reason to stick with her. People who know how to win campaigns talk about non-communication with her management team — too much top down management, too little respect for local and state leadership. Apparently offered real skilled help from Wellstone Action and the Dean people who in the last two years won back the State Legislature, won a Senate Seat, Won two constitutional officers — her people decided to stay away from such and not actually tie into the Party Organization in the state. So those folk all signed on with either Obama or Edwards, and that hardly helped Hillary. It is just dumb. From what I hear, the same thing happened in Iowa…most of Governor Culver’s workers split between Obama and Edwards. So while I do worry that Obama needs Foreign Affairs seasoning — I also am deeply concerned that in caucus states, the people who know how to organize for you in that system were turned away.

In recent weeks there has been much talk about what Arvonne Fraser had to say about Hillary Clinton in her recently published political Autobiography. For those who do not know who Arvonne is — short outline. She started political life as the office manager for Hubert Humphrey’s 1948 campaign. She went from that job to the DFL State Office Manager. She then married Don Fraser, and had six children, but also managed campaigns, including getting her Husband elected to the State Senate, and then Congress in 1962. She managed JFK’s 1960 campaign in Minnesota. Moved to DC, and managed Don’s Capital Hill Office for years. Don eventually became second to Lee Hamilton on Foreign Affairs in the House. Arvonne caught on to the Womens movement very early, helped found NOW, The Womens’ Political Caucus in Minnesota and DC, Women’s Equity Action League and much else — and skipping lots of action, Carter named her as Assistant Secretary of State for International Women’s Affairs. When Reagan was elected, she brought many of the cancelled State Women’s programs back to Minnesota, raised the money for them, and ran them out of the Humphrey Institute. Then, when Clinton was elected, Womens organizations pushed her for Delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. She served two years, but then apparently Hillary arranged to have her fired, because Hillary wanted to run the delegation to the Beijing UN Women’s Conference, and Arvonne and all her networks into the Feminist Organizations with a Foreign Policy tilt — not needed. Believe me, the book, published in November (DFL’ers specialized in giving it as Xmas presents this year) with Garrison Keillor doing several state wide Radio interviews with Arvonne (Whom he calls “Saint Arvonne of the Church of Perpetual Responsibility”), to sell the book, did not actually Help Hillary within the DFL Party. Not in Minnesota, not in Iowa, not in South Dakota, and probably not in Wisconsin. Arvonne’s story probably has its counterparts around the country — and the weakness of Hillary’s ability to forge a winning campaign, probably has lots to do with this pattern.

It is a hard truth to finally have the thousand small slights come home to haunt — but that is what seems to be happening now. People want something different.

Ted Sorenson who was JFK’s wordsmith while in the Senate, and speechwriter plus Counsel, along with former Senator Harris Wofford, who served Kennedy in the Campaign as his Civil Rights Specialist — and then as Special Assistant for Civil Rights, and later as Schriver’s deputy in organizing the Peace Corps — and later as director of the Peace Corps in Africa. The two of them hooked up and are moving around the country training Obama’s volunteers — on an unpaid basis.

As I understand what they are up to, it involves connecting this generation of young volunteers back to the historical ideals of those who volunteered for the New Frontier…be it the campaign or for the Peace Corps. Apparently Obama wanted volunteer training to stress this connection — not for its PR value, but to root his movement solidly in that organizational paradigm. I think it impressive that Obama got two of the surviving New Frontiersmen to volunteer to train volunteers.

Frankly, I am strapping myself down for tomorrow. There is going to be so much spin once the New Hampshire results are in that Earth may toss a few of us off into outer space. Sen. Clinton’s campaign staff has been spinning furiously all day about how finishing second is really a win. One hopes that the Senator will be able to calm them down so that they all don’t go off and pout in a corner if they don’t get the kind of results that they want. The key to experience is to pick yourself up after a setback and move out smartly. We’ve certainly seen the Clintons do this numerous times, but some of their more up front staffers, at least the ones that are showing up in the media, seem a bit callow. I guess only time will tell on this one.

You get it. You always do.

He’s just too angry for office.

Oh, I guess he didn’t get the memo. He was supposed to be moderate and bipartisan.

As for a draft for Gore? He’d be a fool to jump back into politics after the way he was treated in 2000 and he is definitely no fool. He can get more accomplished from right where he is.

But the title of the post itself, guts vs experience, is a false choice, and a false dichotomy. It’s not an either/or.

The fact is that two of the only really qualified candidates are already out (Biden and Dodd), only one left (Richardson), and one never entered (Bob Kerrey).

The Democrats have never had the choice of three such inexperienced people as the leading nominees for President. Could there be an opening for a Draft Gore?

In Nashua, Hillary skates on the edge of Iraq revisionism:

“After 9/11, I would never have taken us to war in Iraq,” she said. “I would have stayed focused on Afghanistan because the real threat was coming from there.”

(http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Back_to_Iraq.html)

Obama is nothing like JFK. JFK was a fighter. Obama is a conciliator. Both could give one hell of a speech. Speechifying is hardly enough. Kennedy had more, much more. Obama?

short version: repub. lions will not lay down with dem. lambs and make nice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/06/AR2008010602402.html?hpid=topnews