Hey, lookit, an email from Michelle Obama!
I am thrilled to make sure you are the first to hear some very exciting news. Charlotte, North Carolina, will host the 46th Democratic National Convention in 2012.
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Charlotte is a city marked by its southern charm, warm hospitality, and an “up by the bootstraps” mentality that has propelled the city forward as one of the fastest-growing in the South. Vibrant, diverse, and full of opportunity, the Queen City is home to innovative, hardworking folks with big hearts and open minds. And of course, great barbecue.
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Barack and I spent a lot of time in North Carolina during the campaign — from the Atlantic Coast to the Research Triangle to the Smoky Mountains and everywhere in between. Barack enjoyed Asheville so much when he spent several days preparing for the second Presidential debate that our family vacationed there in 2009.
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And my very first trip outside of Washington as First Lady was to Fort Bragg, where I started my effort to do all we can to help our heroic military families…
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We hope many of you can join us in Charlotte the week of September 3rd, 2012. But if you can’t, we intend to bring the spirit of the convention — as well as actual, related events to your community and even your own backyard…
How far in cannonball units from Fort Sumter to Charlotte? ‘Cuz you know that Erick Erickson’s biggest phans are already planning their own very (short-bus) special activities in the “spirit of the convention”…
dr. bloor
Democrats deserve whatever they get for trying to convince The South that they aren’t in the business of spreading Godless soshulism while eating their babies alive.
trollhattan
Hmmm, looking at this historical NC state flag I’m seeing an eery echo of a crescent-encircled star. Now what does that remind me of? Can somebody check with Pammy Geller?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:North_Carolina_1861.svg
aimai
I thought I was the only one on her list.
aimai
Violet
Palinbots are going to claim that Michelle is copying Sarah by using that phrase.
David
Look at this headline from Gatewaypundit:
MUBARAK ANNOUNCES RESIGNATION – He Will Not Run Again for President After Obama Administration Asks Him to Step Aside
Posted by Jim Hoft on Tuesday, February 1, 2011, 2:42 PM
It’s flat out wrong (at least right now).
freelancer
Agreed.
trollhattan
Also, too, fans of the film “Gasland” will want to read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/business/energy-environment/01gas.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage
Oddly, the Bush EPA had no issue with fracking using diesel.
Steve
“Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He better have a bodyguard.” –Jesse Helms
Redshift
I can’t believe you didn’t include the bit about making it “The People’s Convention,” which I’m sure wingnuts are already characterizing as the march of Maoism.
Redshift
@Steve: Yeah, that was one of the first things I thought of, too.
Benjamin Cisco
As a Charlottean I say, “woo hoo!”
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@Anne Laurie: __
Haters gotta hate. I say bring it, bitchez!!
JPL
I didn’t need a calendar but after reading all the rescue stories I wanted something that I could peruse and keep so I ordered the BJ calendar. It’s wonderful and a shout out to Laura because she did such a nice job. I certainly will order next years calendar for gifts.
Thanks to all who sent in their pics.
KG
@dr. bloor: you mean over 300 votes in the electoral college by winning Virginia and North Carolina, and Florida, like they did the last time?
BGinCHI
Hopefully Julian Assange will have brought down local heroes Bank of America by then.
lamh32
President Obama to speak within the hour on Muburak’s statement I presume.
Gaming out reactions:
Tweety – Obama being too mean with Muburak (seriously, Tweety said this on Hardball. Obama not treating Muburak with the respect that a friend to US deserves…SMDH)
GOP 1 (and some liberal as well) – why isn’t Obama more directly backing protestors.
GOP 2 (NEO-CONS) – Obama needs to force out Muburak. Send in the troops.
Dan
phans?
does Annie like the phish from vermont or is this a reference I don’t get.
lamh32
Wow, Tweety just asked Mrs greenspan, if we are “doing right by Muburak” really tweety, really. Mrs Greenspan and everyone else who Tweety’s has been trying his damndest to get them to jump on his “us being disrepectful to Muburak by not saying nice things about him”.
Some shit he gleaned from Mike Huckabee of all people.. Ughhh Tweety!
demkat620
@lamh32: That segment with Mrs. Greenspan was worthless.
Redshift
@Benjamin Cisco: I’m hoping the competition will be reduced enough that I might get to be a delegate this time around. And I’ve got relatives in Charlotte I can stay with, bonus!
Redshift
@KG: Nate Silver says he thinks Obama is more likely to win NC than Florida, and more likely to win VA than Ohio, so that also supports the argument that it’s a good strategic choice.
Mako
Isn’t military service a job? You sign a contract? I don’t know, maybe I’m overreacting, but seriously, ever been to a military base? Heroic military families?
lamh32
@demkat620:
Completely. At least Mrs Greenspan did say un-equivically that “YES WE ARE” doing as well as we can right now.
Tweety’s ridiculous on this, but he’s like a dog with a bone thx to Mike Huckabee which is where is got the idea and it spun out of control in his head.
lamh32
@lamh32:
At least Mrs Greenspan (and everyone else his asked) told Tweety that “Yes we are” doing as best we can with the situation. Muburak just doesn’t realize that his time is up, so it’s essentially the last ditch effort of a dictator, who just can’t let go. And the US is trying to ease that transition as best as possible, while not being seen as overtly pushing him out.
KG
@Redshift: well, considering he won all 4 of those last time, yeah. I keep falling back to playing around with 270towin.com and the polls on wikipedia. I’m a sick, sick bastard, but it can be kind of fun. Most interesting poll is South Dakota which is showing only Thune running away with the state, and Obama beating Palin and Newt, Huckabee and Romney only lead by 6. Texas is also interesting, showing only Huckabee running away (Perry tied, Romeny and Newt in the 5-7 range, and Palin by 1). If this holds up, there are going to be a few red states up for grabs come 2012.
Ash Can
@David: I wouldn’t say it’s wrong as much as it’s misleading — the next election isn’t until September. I would imagine the Egyptian people will have ridden him out of town on a rail well before that.
SiubhanDuinne
@aimai:
My colleague (in the next office to me) and I both received our letter from MO at the same instant today, and called out to each other. Pretty funny.
In all seriousness, Charlotte isn’t that far from Atlanta. If I don’t end up having a work-related reason to be at the Dem Convention in 2012 (which could happen), then I am quite prepared to take a few vacation days and volunteer. I vividly remember the 1988 Dem Conv in Atlanta (which I worked — for work, not for the Dems), and not just because of the Rob Lowe sex video. Yes, Michael Dukakis was the nominee that year and that was kind of a drag, and yes, Bill Clinton launched himself onto the national political stage with the world’s longest EVAH nominating speech which was notable mainly because when he said “And in conclusion” the room burst into applause and cheers. But it was also the convention at which Ann Richards, may she RIP, gave us her great line about George H. W. Bush (“He was born with a silver foot in his mouth!”) and, most memorably for me, being in the same room with Jesse Jackson and hearing his unbefuckinlievable oratory. Good times.
dr. bloor
@KG:
I’ll donate $100 to the charity of your choice if they win even one of them in 2012.
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet:
Right. Because Palin TOTALLY invented that phrase all by her own self. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_His_Bootstraps
dave
Hmm…
Not sure how the folks around here (rightly) complain about racism elsewhere while making comments like this that disparage other groups of people, in this case people with disabilities.
KG
@dr. bloor: pick your favorite animal shelter.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
And again I say FYWP, or maybe FYSD, because I couldn’t even get the ETA FYWP line in the right place. Sheesh.
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne:
Palinbot “logic” doesn’t reflect reality. It is what they say it is. Palin likes the bootstraps metaphor, ergo she invented it and anyone else who uses it is copying her. Except if Reagan used it, then he was ahead of his time and Teh Smratest MAn EVAH. But that’s a given for anything he’s associated with, in wingnut land.
dr. bloor
@KG:
Heh. That would be my kitchen at the moment. The mewling herd is making like they haven’t been fed in months.
Great rescue shelter in Warren, RI will be the beneficiary.
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet: She liked lipstick metaphors too, once upon a time.
arguingwithsignposts
As far as I’m concerned, no state in the south should have a national convention as long as they are sucking on the federal teet and spouting confederatism. and that includes North Carolina – and the fucking Duke fanbois.
ETA: Especially considering that Charlotte is the home of the Bank of America, who were responsible in part for the 2008 economic fail.
Mayken
@Mako: Um… yeah, as the daughter of a vet and having watched all my mother went through as an AF wife, yeah, heroic military families. It’s a tough f*ckin’ job and WE didn’t sign any damn contract!
And it’s a very different kind of service – it’s not punching a damn clock, thank you very much.
/rant
bliprob
@arguingwithsignposts: we’re doing what now? I think you’re confusing the carolinas. SC is the basket case. NC is 1:1 in giving/getting tax dollars and if the confederacy is rebooting here, I haven’t seen the sign up sheet.
arguingwithsignposts
@bliprob: hang out in the western part of the state or the more rural areas for a while. There’s plenty of confederatism there (I lived for several years right across the SC border). Oh, and Jesse Helms.
ETA: and Charlotte is home to BoA, no question there.
snowbird42
Charlotte is thrilled. It is an urban,beautiful and Democratic City. People will be amazed.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
My partner was just offered that most elusive of jobs–a tenure-track job in creative writing at a small, midwestern liberal arts college. I get to learn how to shovel snow just in time for my 43rd birthday, and yet I am ecstatic about this. Go Amy!
Mike in NC
Asheville is a pretty cool place. We visited last year and stayed at the Grove Park Inn. A few doors down they had a plaque on the door of the room where Obama stayed.
Mayken
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): Awesome! Congrats to her.
Linnaeus
I’m a little disappointed about the labor situation; the convention center and the area hotels aren’t unionized, and patronizing unionized business is a good way to put Democratic ideals into practice. That said, local unions supported Charlotte’s bid, and I don’t like to second-guess the folks who are in the community. I hope something is worked out to highlight the importance of labor and labor rights.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): Congrats, Brian S (formerly Incertus) and partner!
Spaghetti Lee
I think it’s actually a good idea to hold it outside of “safe” Dem territory. It would be pretty sweet to cement the “New South” as blue territory, and this is a good start.
cmorenc
Charlotte is about 210 miles and 3.5 hours via I-85 & I-26 from Charleston. While modern Charleston is hardly an island of Boulder-type progressivism, nonetheless it’s in relative terms one of the more moderate places in the state. It’s the deep redness (and redneckiness) of most of the rest of the state that makes South Carolina such a swamp of regressive TeaTard-ism.
J. Michael Neal
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): If you need to practice the shoveling, you’re welcome to do so on my driveway.
And I have a job interview tomorrow! Like, for a job I actually want. It’s as an internal auditor with an insurance company. Back when I thought I wanted to go into a PhD program, my research interest was related to internal auditing, though it has applications elsewhere. That was before I learned that academic accounting is a refuge for third rate thinkers who couldn’t get into first class econ programs.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Mike in NC: Asheville’s also a small but potent hotbed of liberalism, far moreso than anyone just visiting would ever expect.
As someone who actually worked the Obama campaign in Charlotte when I lived there, it’s a inspired choice. There was, and still is, a potent ground game in place to support the process, and it’s a powerful place to start working on a long-term gameplan to move the South out of the GOP column.
Also: it puts the Democrats right in the face of Big Finance. One suspects that was a huge part of the calculation, as well.
@Linnaeus: There’s no way on Earth you’re going to change the South’s antipathy towards unions, in and of itself. What you can do, though, is engage we Progressives and Liberals “down here” to make change happen. And the Obama Campaign did a pretty awesome job of that here, last time around, and left a few folks around…
Linnaeus
@Woodrow:
That’s one reason why I’m a less critical of the choice than I might be otherwise; I understand that there’s decades of inertia to be overcome and that you have to “go to the people”, so to speak, in order to make the necessary changes happen. My hope is that the need to do that specifically in the context of labor rights isn’t overlooked.
arguingwithsignposts
Not sure why the reply link isn’t working but I’m calling bullshit, Woodrow:
You say:
@
I’d suggest you study up on some of the history of unions, esp. in the W.V. coal mines. The antipathy toward unions is enormously tilted toward the *haves* and they can go fuck themselves. And as far as I’m Concerned, seating a DNC event in a “right to get fucked” state” is bullshit. (speaking as a person who spent his first 40 years in a RTW state).
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@arguingwithsignposts: My father was not only an Union Organizer (NAPFE), but also ran for the presidency of same. While we lived in South Carolina.
So you can go ahead and slow that roll right quick. We’re basically on the same side, I think. I’m trying to tell you that, as someone raised in the South, ignoring it isn’t going to make the unions robust here again. No matter how good the anger feels, you either have to grow what’s already seeded here, or let it lie fallow and watch it wither even more.
There are local unions here too, you know? And the Obama campaign knows, because they tried to hire them whenever possible; it was an ongoing discussion with the staff on the ground during the two rallies I volunteered to help org. Spitting in their face because of RTW — well, I don’t understand that level of anger of self-foot-shooting. To me, that’s a case where doing things like flipping the state might mean we can flip the laws — which, last I checked, was the point of this exercise.
But, again, I’m just the son of a Union man.
evap
My daughter is going to UNC Asheville this fall. She applied to one school and, luckily for all of us, got in. I am really looking forward to having a excuse to visit Asheville!
Anne Laurie
@Brian S (formerly Incertus):
Congratulations to the both of you! Sure, snow-shovelling suxx, but at least the ‘palmetto bugs’ are much smaller in the Midwest.
(I will admit I have an unreasonable prejudice against the Sunshine State — only been there twice, once in November, once in January, both during “unseasonably warm” spells. Each time it was like spending a week locked in the bathroom right after somebody had just finished taking a three-hour shower. I carry around sufficient personal insulation that anything over 80F is unbearable, even when the humidity isn’t crowding 90%.)
Anya
WTF! They’re holding the freaking convention in the South. Democrats are assholes. We need to focus on the Midwest, not the unattainable south. Oh well, I guess Claire McCaskill did not get any love from the DNC.
Sarcastro
You know that 50-state strategy that won us two elections running?
Fuck that shit, we have acceptable minorities to stereotype!
arguingwithsignposts
Woodrow: your point is a fair one. i’m the stepson of a union man from Texas, so I understand where you’re coming from. peace.
Davie Dave
A clever recognition that North Carolina is the new bellwether state in national elections.