NEWSWEEK: Secrets Of The 2008 Campaign [HIGHLY RECOMMENDED] POLITICO: Critics said they were too nice, too vague on the issues, too obsessed with the youth vote and too dependent on all those penny-ante Internet donors. But Obama’s core group of Chicago advisers, led by former reporter David Axelrod, has created a new paradigm for post-Rove campaigning. Instead of exploiting wedge issues (as Rove did) or micro-targeting demographic niche groups (as the Clintons and their pollster, Mark Penn, did), they focused on exciting a new base of young people, educated whites and minority voters. Get-out-the-vote wizard Steve Hildebrand built a hyperdisciplined […]
OFFICIAL: Barack Obama President-Elect Of The USA
[Photos by DIS-SECTION & RICKYO] POPULAR VOTE: OBAMA: 63,508,605 MCCAIN: 52,214,109 ELECTORAL NUMBERS: OBAMA 349, MCCAIN 166 (270 NEEDED TO WIN) NEW YORK TIMES: Senator Barack Obama stood on the brink of an historic victory Tuesday after he appeared to have won enough electoral votes to defeat Senator John McCain for president and to become the first African-American to serve as the nation’s chief executive. CNN and ABC projected at 11 p.m. Eastern time that Mr. Obama had won the election. MORE YES WE DID: South Broad St. 10:57 PM Last Night [Hat tip to JOHN REFANO] NEW VISION, UGANDA’S […]
ENDORSEMENT: Why I Voted For Barack Obama
BY JONATHAN VALANIA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF PHAWKER.COM Because I don’t believe in politicians, but I believe in this man. Because the rest of the world believes in this man, and contrary to what some would have you believe, that is a good thing. In fact, it’s crucial. Because words matter and he is a man of his word. Because he appealed to our best hopes instead of our worst fears. Because he ran on the content of his character, not the color of his skin. Because despite all that, he had to be twice as good. Because he is neither black nor […]
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: Just Do It!
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A PRAYER FOR THE CITY: Pathway To Hope
BY JEFF DEENEY With the mercury starting to dip and the nights getting longer expect the Inquirer to drop their boilerplate homelessness story any day now. They’ve been reprinting this story annually, simply changing the date with each iteration, for as long as I can remember. You can set your watch by this story — it’s better than a department store full of fake pine trees and giant plastic candy canes for letting you know the holidays are almost here. You know, that story where an Inky reporter first gets Center City District CEO Paul Levy on the phone for […]
Obama’s Grandmother Dies Of Cancer, Had Hoped To Live Long Enough To See Grandson Elected President
REUTERS: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama‘s grandmother died of cancer, he said in a statement on Monday, a little more than a week after Obama interrupted the White House race to say goodbye to her in Hawaii. “It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer,” Obama said in a joint statement with his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. “She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility.” Dunham helped raise Obama from the age of 10 while his mother was working in […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
I AM SUPERMAN: Of Montreal, Electric Factory, Friday Night BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER The only constant with the Athens, Ga., indie-pop band Of Montreal — over the course 11 years, nine albums, five EPs and innumerable personnel shifts — is change. In its decade-long evolution from twee psych-pop for second-wave Elephant 6ers recording collective to its current status as the definitive, post-everything party band for barely 20-somethings, Of Montreal’s mantra has remained the same: Change or die. Likewise, the band’s live show is a study in perpetual flux. During the course of the band’s two-hour tour de farce […]
ROAD TRIPPIN’: I Went Punkin’ Chunkin’ And All I Got Was A Good Time And A Bad Hangover
[Photos by KEVIN LUDWIG] BY BERNARD DOWNEY Admiring the autumnal foliage heading south on I-95, the white noise rush of traffic whooshing in my ears, along with the occasional Guns N Roses song on the radio, I press the pedal to the metal of my ’84 Corolla and race towards the annual World Championship Punkin Chunkin in Sussex County, Delaware. I didn’t really know what to expect. For the last 22 years, on the first weekend after Halloween, beery revelers have gathered in this picturesque community to catapult pumpkins with homemade cannons. Do not let the term ‘homemade’ dissuade you […]
PAY TO PLAY: Volunteers Say ‘Show Me The Money’
PHILLY CLOUT: PhillyClout correspondent Dave Davies reports in on a growing wave of concern in the city’s Democratic party about “street money,” the funds distributed to pay for Election Day workers. When Democratic ward leaders fire up their election day operations tomorrow, they’ll do it without “street money” from the Obama campaign, and many are ticked about it. City Democratic chairman U.S. Rep. Bob Brady hasn’t returned out calls on it, but we heard from several ward leaders that Obama stiffed Bob and the local party, choosing to rely on his own massive volunteer army. Ward leaders told us they […]
WORTH REPEATING: Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You, But What You Can Do For Your Country
“Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?” — John F. Kennedy, Inaurgural […]
EQUAL TIME: Letter From A Red State Mom
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a letter sent to Phawker Gaydar Editor Aaron Stella by his mother, explaining her decision to vote for McCain despite her son’s attempts to convince her otherwise. Both agreed to Phawker publishing it along with a rebuttal. Astute readers will recall Sylvia Stella’s proud mom remarks and constructive criticisms in the COMMENTS section of Aaron’s Gaydar columns. She currently resides in Cullman, Alabama. Dear Aaron, I have read quite a bit on both Obama and McCain. I am voting for McCain. People fought and died for our right to vote. A vote is not a […]
NP: Lou Reed Berlin: Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse
Now playing on Phawker Radio! BY ED KING ROCK EXPERT Each new release by Lou Reed promises a mix of beauty, truth, horror, and mostly unintended humor. That’s a big part of why I’ve hung in with the guy through so many stilted, hectoring albums, such as the spiritually rock-bottom Rock ‘n Roll Heart, the squirm-inducing Mistrial, and the prematurely acclaimed New York, an album that within a few years of its release played like a grainy rebroadcast of an outdated CNN current events show. Reed never ceases growing up in public, and when we catch him at a relatively fruitful stage […]
KILLADELPHIA: 2 Dead Since U Went To Bed
INQUIRER: Two men were stabbed, one fatally, at a shopping center in the 600 block of Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia this morning. Police were called to the scene at 1:04 a.m. today. A 36-year-old male, who was stabbed in the stomach, was pronounced dead at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital at 1:28 a.m. The other victim, a 31-year-old male was stabbed in the back and is in stable condition at Jefferson. In a second Sunday homicide, a male in his 20s was fatally shot in the back early this morning in the 2100 block of North Reese Street in Kensington. […]