Thursday, March 27, 2008

It's Official

The Obama headquaters is up and running, although not yet on all cylinders.

There may be an opening event at a later date, but the headquarters is now staffed and, I am certain, receptive to offers of help from willing volunteers.

Now is the best time to make contact and begin the push toward victory in Indiana.

The staff currently consists of Allen Wood and Meghan Maher, but I'll bet there's room for you.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Obama Campaign H.Q. Coming to New Albany

The Obama campaign is coming to New Albany.

The campaign headquarters will open in a few days at the Parthenon. Owners Carl Holiday and Steve Goodman gave the go ahead today. They made the gracious offer even though the property is for sale. The space will only be needed through the primary. If Senator Obama is successful in winning the nomination, it is likely the headquarters will operate out of Democratic headquarters.

As of now, the organization is still coming together. But, for those supporting Obama, it should be just a few days until you will have a place to gather and get involved in this vitally important effort to take back America.

With the start of the campaign here, can the candidate be far behind?

Sunday, March 16, 2008

May the Road Come Up to Meet You

And top 'o the mornin' to you Mr. O' Bama; sure'n you'll have my vote in May, and with fate's gentle kiss, in November too. Always happy to root for a lad o' the old sod.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Good Job, Carl

The City of New Albany is the new owner of the Baptist Tabernacle building on Fourth Street.

The City, ably represented by Carl Malysz, was the successful bidder for the building in a sheriff's sale held at 10:00 AM today.

As stated earlier and shown below, I think this is an excellent move by and for the City. It may or may nor be used for the purpose I suggested, but it is now safe from potential misuse had it fallen into certain parties' hands. I am not referring to the main other bidder, a valuable and venerable local business.

There will now be ample time to consider the many possible uses for this wonderful structure.

Good job, Carl.

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Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Worth a Look
Anyone who has attended City Council meetings can attest to the fact that the council chamber is an inadequate venue for those meetings. The City-County Building itself is overcrowded. In order to insure the satisfactory delivery of services the public expects, it is time to look for additional space for both a meeting room, and as a means of relieving the general space constraints at the City-County Building. Some have even suggested that an entirely new government center be built.While the construction of a new government center would be a costly project, there is a more modest step which could go a long way toward solving the space problem at the City-County Building. This more modest step has the added virtues of preserving a historically significant building, while also consolidating government buildings into a campus.The Baptist Tabernacle on Fourth Street between Spring and Market Streets is currently for sale by a motivated seller. I visited with him briefly today. He said he has heard various proposals for alternate uses of the old church constructed in 1879. Most of these have been for restaurants or other entertainment uses. A better use would be as the main meeting room for official gatherings.The structure has a striking facade that would make an impressive governmental building. It has the added benefit of facing into the large parking lot of the new fire house (the fire house faces Spring Street) which would create a kind of a governmental complex. The interior of the church has been drastically altered; the old floor was removed and a new floor installed, cutting roughly in half, the air space of the church's congregational room. The installation of the new floor caused three-quarters of the window area to be bricked in. Reclaiming this building for governent use would be a strong statement in favor of historic preservation. It could also help lend support to revitalization efforts along Market and Spring streets.The most daring reclamation effort would remove the existing floor, and replace it with a floor at the original elevation. This would provide truly impressive space with a ceiling height of about 32 feet. Less daring, but perhaps more practical, would be reclamation within the current layout of the building. That scheme would provide twice the floor space with a still impressive upper floor and a ceiling height of about 16-18 feet.In either case the public would be able to attend meetings in a commodious setting. They would be able to use existing city-owned parking spaces in the lot behind the fire house. And some of the overcrowding of the City-County Building could be alleviated as the current City Council room could be converted to office space.
Posted by John Gonder at 12:06 AM 4 comments Links to this post
Sunday

Monday, March 10, 2008

Time's a Wastin

Television pundits have passed through the giddy stage contemplating a brokered convention for the Democrats and have now entered the second round of Hillary-Inevitability. The first round ended when Obama began to cash in on the palpable hunger for change which the sane feel as a natural reaction to the Bush regime. This hunger pushed Obama ahead of Clinton as a more plausible bearer of the change banner.

I came late to the Obama party. I held out hope for a hat tossed in the ring, or at least a wink or a nod form Al Gore. When it became apparent that he would, in fact, sit this one out, I decided to go with Obama, and said so here.

I was resigned to the fact that Clinton was the likely winner even though I was troubled by the primogeniture-ish feel of a continuation of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton power sharing arrangement in place now since 1981, and promised to continue to 2017 if Clinton were victorious; that's 36 years for those scoring at home. Obama showed some surprising strength and this seemed to spook the Clinton camp and throw it off stride. The result was not a recognition of the need for real change but rather a reveal of low down tactics that could prove to be a scorched earth policy.

Victory in the Fall is still even-money. But it is quite possible that Clinton's tactics will drive down Democratic participation making it less likely that a tidal wave of Democratic House and Senate seats will result from a Presidential win. The result would be more gridlock and more capitulation to a radical minority.

Mrs. Clinton needs to remember that even though she greatly admires John McCain and thinks he's more qualified to be President than Barack Obama, in the event that she is nominated but dosen't win, a lot of things she supposedly values are on the line. The game of chicken she is playing with Obama now threatens not only a continuation of rule through minority maneuvering but more importantly, it threatens to place Supreme Court appointments in the hands of a so-called moderate with something to pay back or prove to conservatives. The effect of those appointments, likely between two and four, could make the mangling of the Constitution under Bush look absolutely Bush league.

My advice to Obama:
the best way to get this thing nailed down NOW is to call Al Gore and plead with him to join Obama as his running mate. That is a recipe for a landslide of epic proportion. Gore can go on about his business trying to save the planet from Global Warming and still remain a heartbeat away from the presidency. After all, look what Cheney was able to do for the military industrial complex from his second row seat.
My advice to Gore:
put your pride in a lockbox and call Barack. Your country needs you, both.

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What follows is not original. It points out the fact that Clinton is playing with fire and someone responsible needs her put down the kerosine.

Breaking the Final Rule By Gary Hart The Huffington Post

Friday 07 March 2008
It will come as a surprise to many people that there are rules in politics. Most of those rules are unwritten and are based on common understandings, acceptable practices, and the best interest of the political party a candidate seeks to lead. One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned.

By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.
(emphasis added)

As a veteran of red telephone ads and "where's the beef" cleverness, I am keenly aware that sharp elbows get thrown by those trailing in the fourth quarter (and sometimes even earlier). "Politics ain't beanbag," is the old slogan. But that does not mean that it must also be rule-or-ruin, me-first-and-only-me, my way or the highway. That is not politics. That is raw, unrestrained ambition for power that cannot accept the will of the voters.

Senator Obama is right to say the issue is judgment not years in Washington. If Mrs. Clinton loses the nomination, her failure will be traced to the date she voted to empower George W. Bush to invade Iraq. That is not the kind of judgment, or wisdom, required by the leader answering the phone in the night. For her now to claim that Senator Obama is not qualified to answer the crisis phone is the height of irony if not chutzpah, and calls into question whether her primary loyalty is to the Democratic party and the nation or to her own ambition.
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