From Bloomberg:

Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) — Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the most
influential foreign-policy experts in the Democratic Party,
threw his support behind Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy,
saying the Illinois senator has a better global grasp than his
chief rival, Hillary Clinton.       

Obama "recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new
sense of direction, a new definition of America’s role in the
world,” Brzezinski said in an interview on Bloomberg
Television’s "Political Capital with Al Hunt.”

"Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand,”
Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter’s national security
adviser, said. "He has a sense of what is historically
relevant, and what is needed from the United States in
relationship to the world.”

To read the full article, click here.

In
mid-September 2003, a national poll put the eventual nominee John Kerry
behind Howard Dean — and both of them behind the frontrunner in the
polls, Joe Lieberman. 

Then Kerry won the Iowa caucus and the
New Hampshire primary, and that momentum carried him all the way to the
nomination. The lesson: early polls don’t mean a thing and momentum in
crucial early-state contests will win the Democratic nomination. 

While
many of you are in the midst of preparing to host or attend barbecues
this weekend as part of the new My.BarackObama Action Center, we wanted
to give you a heads up about a new series of grassroots events you can
take part in as well. 

Host a Countdown for Change house party on September 15th and support Barack’s early state strategy: 

http://my.barackobama.com/hpcountdown 

Today,
we’re announcing our national Countdown for Change. We’re counting down
the days until the early primaries and caucuses — in Iowa, Nevada, New
Hampshire, and South Carolina — and now is the time to leverage our
national movement to make the maximum impact in the early states. 

Host a house party and you and your guests will: 

• Take part in an exclusive conference call with our top staff in the four early states
• Get a packet of materials to make direct contact with voters and organizers in one of the early states 

Join supporters nationwide by hosting a Countdown to Change house party on September 15th: 

http://my.barackobama.com/hpcountdown 

We can only win in these crucial early states if our best supporters are adding their efforts across the country. 

Things
are heating up, and we’ve all got a lot to do. But I hope you’ll take
the time to be a leader in this crucial early-state initiative. 

Thank you,

David 

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Barack is scheduled to be a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart next Wednesday, August 22nd.

You and a friend could get a free trip to New York City and
tickets to be part of the studio audience — you’ll even get to meet
Barack.

We’re going to choose one new supporter who signs up this week to go
to New York along with the person who invited them to join the
campaign.

We’ll pay for travel, and you’ll both get to meet Barack and be part of the studio audience when he’s on The Daily Show next week.

Help grow the movement — each friend you invite could be the one
selected to join you at Comedy Central’s World News Headquarters:

http://my.barackobama.com/dailyshowtix

To participate, all you need to do is invite someone new to join the movement this week.

Read the rest of this entry »

This Sunday, August 19th, Senator Barack Obama will be hosting a private conference call to discuss veterans’ issues.

Join the Senator and his guests General Scott Gration and General
Tony McPeak for a conversation about honoring America’s sacred trust to
care for our veterans and their families.

Sign up here to participate:

http://my.barackobama.com/veteranscall

Here are the details:

Veterans’ Policy Briefing Conference Call
Sunday, August 19th
7:30 p.m. EDT

Senator Obama will be speaking at the Veterans for Foreign Wars Annual Convention in Kansas City, MO on Tuesday, August 21st.

One focus of the speech will be the need to build a 21st century
Veterans Administration that works with the Pentagon to provide
seamless services for all veterans.

We’re organizing this call to give you an early chance to hear the
Senator discuss this and other Veteran’s policies. You will also hear
from Generals Gration and McPeak about why they support Senator Obama’s
campaign.

You must RSVP to participate in the call. We will email you with the
call-in number and passcode a few hours before the call begins:

http://my.barackobama.com/veteranscall

Thank you for your support,

Matthew

Matthew Nugen
National Political Director
Obama for America

This Sunday, August 19th, Senator Barack Obama will be hosting a private conference call to discuss veterans’ issues.

Join the Senator and his guests General Scott Gration and General
Tony McPeak for a conversation about honoring America’s sacred trust to
care for our veterans and their families.

Sign up here to participate:

http://my.barackobama.com/veteranscall

Here are the details:

Veterans’ Policy Briefing Conference Call
Sunday, August 19th
7:30 p.m. EDT

Senator Obama will be speaking at the Veterans for Foreign Wars Annual Convention in Kansas City, MO on Tuesday, August 21st.

One focus of the speech will be the need to build a 21st century
Veterans Administration that works with the Pentagon to provide
seamless services for all veterans.

We’re organizing this call to give you an early chance to hear the
Senator discuss this and other Veteran’s policies. You will also hear
from Generals Gration and McPeak about why they support Senator Obama’s
campaign.

You must RSVP to participate in the call. We will email you with the
call-in number and passcode a few hours before the call begins:

http://my.barackobama.com/veteranscall

Thank you for your support,

Matthew

Matthew Nugen
National Political Director
Obama for America

You’ve taken Barack’s message of change and created a grassroots movement that’s bigger than anyone could have imagined.

My.BarackObama has 80,000 members who have created profiles and
6,000 different organizing groups. 7,500 events have been held and
another 500 are currently being planned.

But now we need to prove what those numbers mean. We need to turn
grassroots support into grassroots action and change the political
landscape.

Today, we’re launching the My.BarackObama Action Center to provide you, the builders of this movement, with a series of structured actions that you can complete throughout the fall.

Take action and prove that when we stand together the American people are stronger than any interest group:

My.BarackObama.com/ActionCenter

The Action Center will always feature something you can do to help the movement where we need it most.

We’re kicking it off with something fun but extremely important.
More than anything, right now we need you to build support in your
local community. So we’re asking activists like you to host a Barbecue for Barack on August 25th.

Read the rest of this entry »

Maya Soetoro-Ng, Sen. Obama’s Indonesian American half-sister, speaks about growing up with Barack and what this campaign means to their family in a video past the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the Obama campaign has released an updated fact sheet on Barack and APA issues, Asian Americans for Obama needs your help to translate this document into various Asian languages. 

As you may have seen in our earlier post, we already have versions of the flyer in traditional and simplified Chinese.  However, out of a desire to keep them to one page, those flyers only included the following issues from the complete fact sheet:

*Reform and Fund No Child Left Behind
*Give More High Schoolers Access to College Courses
*Increase Federal College Aid
*Free Up Money for Student Aid
*Invest in Small Businesses
*Build Framework for East Asian Cooperation
*Reforming H-1B Visas

We still need help translating the complete flyer into traditional and simplified Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog, Japanese, and more.

If you would like to offer your skills, simply download the APA Fact Sheet below, translate the document, and e-mail the completed version to us at asianamericansforobama@gmail.com.  As translated versions become available, we will post them to this site for download.

Thanks for all your help!

Download fact_sheet_asian_americans_and_pacific_islanders_final.pdf

In an August 1 speech, Sen. Obama said that "[i]f we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets" in Pakistan, "and [Pakistani] President Musharraf won’t act, we will."

GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani criticized Sen. Obama for being inconsistent for advocating the above policy while also saying that he would always keep diplomatic channels open with any country.  Rather than present honest analysis of this criticism (which only requires a moment’s thought for anyone to realize how empty it is) or point out that both Romney and Giuliani agreed with the substance of Obama’s remarks, NBC and MSNBC aired the GOP candidates’ statements without critical analysis.

Media Matters has continued its vital role of keeping the media honest by highlighting the numerous problems with such an uncritical presentation of Romney’s and Giuliani’s remarks.

To read more, visit the links below:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200708070004
http://mediamatters.org/items/200708060006