Collateral benefits of a people’s candidate

I don’t know about you, but to me the election coverage seems more like a highly sophisticated episode of Jerry Springer by the day. After wading through the bitter debate over the insignificant phrases of candidates for over an hour, I was simply looking for anything else to read. End Politics as Usual talked about something I saw on the Colbert Report the other day called DonorsChoose.org. This website allows teachers to post the needs of their classroom and the specifics of the project the supplies will be used for, and donors can pick and fund the projects. It’s a great example of how the internet and technology can benefit public education.

Stephen Colbert posed the challenge to his Nation to donate in the name of whichever Democrat they prefer. I guess John McCain is just left out of this contest, but it’s still interesting to see the results. At the time of this posting, these are the totals:

Colbert will have Michelle Obama as his guest on the Colbert Report tonight, April 15, 2008. Hillary Clinton will be his guest on Thursday, April 17th. It should be an exciting week for his show and the Democrats. I sometimes have a knee-jerk reaction with Michelle Obama as if she might end up saying something seeped in a culture many Americans don’t understand. It’s really the same with Cindy McCain, who is constantly showing just how much of a princess she’s been all her life. As far as spouses go, Michelle Obama has overcome more in her life. The role of the First Lady is often to facilitate humanitarian and charitable work, which makes me wonder about each of the three spouses. Bill Clinton’s involvement in Kiva has been of particular interest to me.

It’s got to be near impossible to be a terrible First Lady (or First Husband), but this season I give the edge to former President Clinton, who has been there through it all, helped the economy, and works for some great humanitarian groups. The beauty of Kiva is that they don’t donate, they facilitate microcredit loans. It’s the same idea as that “give a man a fish / teach a man to fish” quote. This is a great PBS film detailing the history and effectiveness of microfinance. The pioneer of this concept, Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on this project. Here’s what the Norwegian Nobel Committee said about him:

Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty.

Just a few thoughts about the positive things these people are doing every day, when not getting attacked for their word choice.

Cindy McCain plagiarizes, the youth vote and Obama’s immediate review

Just a small non-issue because I found it funny. According to the LA Times blog, Cindy McCain’s family recipes on her husband’s campaign website were plagiarized from the Food Network website and Rachel Ray. This is pathetic, but again not a major issue or a reason to vote. Personally it’s hard to see Cindy McCain on TV without getting this overwhelming feeling of privilege. She’s actually a teacher, which is very respectable. The problem is that she doesn’t feel the same hard times as most teachers. Most teachers don’t get labeled an heiress by any newspaper article. The more absurd notion of this whole plagiarism fiasco is that she’s actually a cook, with her own recipes. As the heiress to the Budweiser empire in Arizona, she’s probably never tasted Ramen noodles or eaten dog biscuits for sustenance. Just a guess.

On the contrary and about her husband, I just watched John McCain on the Hardball College Tour from Villanova University and I was very impressed. I still question his sharpness and bearing with the economy, but he’s more human and personable than he has appeared in other venues. Is it just me or are candidates much more sincere and human when speaking to college campuses and other gatherings of youth? Barack Obama communicated well during his Hardball College Tour visit, but to see Senator McCain come to life was a surprise to say the least. His evasion of the “typical white person” question was truly noble, as well as his rambling response to the question about having a shot. He revealed more of himself without taking easy opportunities to take jabs at his opponents.

Finally, the Huffington Post reports that Barack Obama would carefully, but immediately review evidence to decide if any further inquiry should be launched into possible Bush administration war crimes. Personally the jury is still out on this issue. I realize that many within the administration are certainly worth an inquiry, but the overall process may prove counter-productive. I agree with the caveat that it runs the risk of creating a partisan witch hunt. The last thing this country needs is for both sides to continue swinging the pendulum back-and-forth.

I also wanted to make one comment about a video I saw on MSNBC of Michelle Obama speaking before some crowd, emphasizing that she herself worked hard for everything. She also sees herself as a testament to the value of investment in public education. I couldn’t agree more. I constantly hear one rebuttal when I begin to make an argument for funding education and paying teachers more: simply throwing money at the problem doesn’t work. The problem is, we’ve never tried. We’ve tried throwing money at the problem of needing a strong democratic ally in the Middle East, but not at better preparing our children for the future. Does that make any sense?