NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama has been named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2012.
“We are in the midst of historic cultural and demographic changes, and Obama is both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America,” Time Editor Rick Stengel told NBC’s “Today” show, where he announced the selection on Wednesday.
The short list for the honor included Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head for advocating for girls’ education, as well as Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Italian physicist Fabiola Giannati.
Obama also received the honor in 2008, when he was President-elect.
In an interview with Time, Obama said his re-election “may have been more satisfying a win than 2008.”
“We’ve gone through a very difficult time,” Obama told the magazine. “The American people have rightly been frustrated at the pace of change, and the economy is still struggling, and this president we elected is imperfect, and yet, despite all that, this is who we want to be. That’s a good thing.”
Last year, Time honored “The Protester,” citing dissent across the Middle East that spread to Europe and the United States, saying the protesters reshaped global politics.
Time’s “Person of the Year” is the person or thing that has most influenced the culture and the news during the past year for good or for ill. In 2010, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg received the honor.
Other previous winners have included Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Bono and President George W. Bush.
Because this is Jon Stewart, it is of course high comedy. Unless you chose to watch the election results come in with the toxic waste dump of a news network Fox News, you may not have seen Karl Rove’s meltdown, and Megan Kelly’s pathetic attempt to convince Fox News’ OWN electoral vote watchers that what they had just seen was not what they had just seen. Enjoy, and you’re welcomed.
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—With the first Presidential debate just two days away, G.O.P. nominee Mitt Romney has been working intensively on two skills that have eluded him throughout the campaign: talking and thinking.
According to one aide, much of Mr. Romney’s debate preparation has involved rehearsing a slew of prepackaged “zingers,” with mixed results: “We gave him what we thought was a foolproof line about the budget deficit and he somehow turned it into a crack about gay Mexicans.”
Reportedly, Mr. Romney’s practice debates have gone worse than expected, with the former Massachusetts governor getting trounced by a variety of opponents, including the Apple personal assistant Siri.
At a joint campaign appearance in Ohio today, Ann Romney attempted to lower expectations for her husband’s performance at this Wednesday’s debate: “When Mitt starts working his mouth and goes off on some weird tangent about who knows what, please just tune him out. God knows that’s how I’ve survived all these years.”
WASHINGTON — Deidra Reese isn’t waiting for people to come to her to find out whether they are registered to vote.
With iPad in hand, Reese is going to community centers, homes and churches in nine Ohio cities, looking up registrations to make sure voters have proper ID and everything else they need to cast ballots on Election Day.
“We are not going to give back one single inch. We have fought too long and too hard,” said Reese, 45, coordinator of the Columbus-based Ohio Unity Coalition, an affiliate of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.
Reese is part of a cadre of black women engaged in a revived wave of voting rights advocacy four years after the historic election of the nation’s first black president. Provoked by voting law changes in various states, they have decided to help voters navigate the system — a fitting role, they say, given that black women had the highest turnout of any group of voters in 2008.
This information comes from the Obama for America Website! It shows the activity from 2008 until now for Black Women for Obama, nationwide! Look at the number of calls made, the number of events held, the amount of money raised for President Obama in 2008!!!
We can do it again! President Obama NEEDS our help! If you’re not already a member of the BarackObama.com website, visit it NOW to register, and join the “Black Women for Obama” group and be counted as one of our members! Then give your time, and your money heading up to the final stretch of the election so that everyone knows that BWFO is a force for change in 2012 as well!
President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign intensified its rebukes of Mitt Romney Friday evening for a remark made by the presumptive Republican nominee about the president’s birth certificate earlier in the day.
Speaking to a crowd of enthusiastic supporters in Commerce, Mich. — and noting the local roots shared by him and his wife, Ann — Romney quipped that “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.” Of course, Obama’s birthplace has been the subject of fervid (if wholly debunked) conspiracy theorizing in the years since he arrived on the national stage.
The Obama campaign responded with a 15-second attack ad posted to YouTube Friday evening — titled “America Doesn’t Need A Birther-in-Chief” — that recycles video of Romney’s joke, while a narrator intones, “Holding out hope Romney had a vision for the middle class? Think again.” Read the rest of this entry →
FiveThirtyEight is devoted to rigorous analysis of politics, polling, public affairs, sports, science and culture, largely through statistical means.
They are a polling aggregation website with a blog created by Nate Silver. Sometimes colloquially referred to as 538 dot com or just 538, the website takes its name from the number of electors in the United States electoral college. Established on March 7, 2008, as FiveThirtyEight.com, in August 2010 the blog became a licensed feature of The New York Times online and was renamed FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver’s Political Calculus.
During the U.S. presidential primaries and general election of 2008, the site compiled polling data through a unique methodology derived from Silver’s experience in baseball sabermetrics to “balance out the polls with comparative demographic data” and “weighting each poll based on the pollster’s historical track record, sample size, and recentness of the poll”.
There’s a secret lurking behind everything you’re reading about the upcoming election, a secret that all political insiders know—or should—but few are talking about, most likely because it takes the drama out of the whole business. The secret is the electoral college, and the fact is that the more you look at it, the more you come to conclude that Mitt Romney has to draw an inside straight like you’ve never ever seen in a movie to win this thing. This is especially true now that it seems as if Pennsylvania isn’t really up for grabs. Romney’s paths to 270 are few.
First, let’s discuss Pennsylvania. There has been good reason for Democrats to sweat this state. True, Obama won it handily in 2008, by 10 points. But it’s a state that is older and whiter and more working-class than most of America. Obama benefited from all the unique circumstances of 2008 that helped him across the country, but if ever there were a state where the “well, we gave the black guy a chance and he blew it” meme might catch on, it’s the Keystone State.
“The Obama Effect”, is coming to a theater near some this Friday!
The movie, features Charles Dutton as John Thomas an insurance salesman in his 50′s who suffers from serious health issues. Motivated by a misguided obsession with getting Barack Obama elected, John takes an overwhelming involvement in the Presidential campaign. While John becomes obsessed with the ideal of change that Obama represents for Americans, he has in turn neglected to create positive change in his own life, particularly with regard to his health and family relationships. John hides his health problems from his strong, yet supportive wife, Molly (Vanessa Bell Calloway), creating a strain on their marriage. When Molly discovers that John has been hiding his health scares from her, she urges him to take positive action to improve his bad habits. John works to get back on the right path with his health and family as Obama soars to success in the campaign.
Black Women for Obama will support the movie, and can’t WAIT to relive the 2008 election!
Need a ride to the polls? On October 27th early voting begins in Georgia, and Black Women for Obama is helping to get voters to the polls! To request a ride, click the link below, or call us at (678) 856-5512.
"Believing In Obama", Available Now!
The election of Barack Obama in 2008 –- historic and controversial. But what was it like for the legions of volunteers drawn into the political fray for the very first time? In Believing in Obama, a new book by Patricia Wilson-Smith, you will relive the history of the 2008 election through the eyes of a citizen activist and volunteer.
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About BWFO
Black Women for Obama is a grass roots organization dedicated to the re-election of Barack Obama in 2012. In the 2008 election, we played a pivotal role, especially in the southeast, canvassing and volunteering, and we plan to do so nation-wide in the months leading up to the 2012 election as well.
Joining the organization is free - click here for more information, or call us at 404.692.5251.
We are the voice of black women around the nation, who believe that America needs President Obama to stay right where he is.