Tag Archive: Yale on the Trail: Barack Obama

  1. Obama vows to ‘change’ America

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    By Thomas Kaplan

    DENVER — Sen. Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday, vowing that “it’s time for us to change America” after what he called the failed presidency of George W. Bush ’68.

    Before countless Elis in front of their televisions and an energized crowd of tens of thousands at a football stadium here, the 47-year-old cast himself in sharp relief to the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, on policy matters foreign and domestic.

    Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, called on the American people to muster the courage to restore what he called an American promise fallen under siege by the Bush administration. [Read more →]

  2. Obama: ‘We are a better country than this’

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    By Thomas Kaplan

    DENVER, 5:22 p.m. — The Obama campaign has released excerpts from the speech to be delivered this evening by Senator Barack Obama, the Democrative presidential nominee.  In remarks entitled “The American Promise,” Obama critiques the “failed presidency” of George W. Bush ’68 and — guess what — calls for change.

    “America, we are better than these last eight years,” he said. “We are a better country than this.”

    More excerpts are after the jump. (more…)

  3. McAuliffe: We’re united

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    By Thomas Kaplan

    DENVER, 4:20 p.m. — Is the Democratic party unified? The Clinton camp says so.

    Terry McAuliffe, the campaign chair for Senator Hillary Clinton LAW ’73, stood outside a luxury box in the Pepsi Center on Wednesday night, smiling for photographs and shaking hands with supporters, the weight of the long campaign seemingly dissolved.

    “We’re all coming together today because you know what, the issues are too important,” he said in an interview with the News. “We’re going to stick together.”

    So did the Clintons’ speeches unify the party?  “I think they went beyond that,” McAuliffe said. “If those two speeches didn’t do it … just spectacular.”

  4. LIVE: Hillary’s big night

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    My stellar view from my seat inside the Pepsi Center made blogging about Tuesday’s speeches a real treat.

    By Thomas Kaplan

    DENVER — Welcome to day two of the Democratic National Convention.  We are live from the Pepsi Center, where Senator Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 will address delegates — and a national television audience — at approximately 8:30 p.m. Mountain time.  Our live blog is after the jump. (more…)

  5. Norton: Obama will give D.C. the vote

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    By Thomas Kaplan

    DENVER, 4:39 p.m. — Like many other Democrats, Eleanor Holmes Norton GRD ’63 LAW ’64, Washington’s non-voting member of the House of Representatives, came here this week to push for change.

    But Norton has one specific change in mind: to give residents of the District of Columbia a vote in Congress.  And electing Senator Barack Obama as president will help that cause, Norton said in a speech this afternoon at the Democratic National Convention

    “Forty-five years ago this week, Martin Luther King Jr. inspired us to act on the principle that all Americans must have equal rights. Democrats will finish King’s unfinished business for equal voting rights for the citizens of our capital,” Norton said. “King’s vision that change is best achieved when wrapped in unchanging principles is the hallmark of Democrats — from Martin Luther King Jr. to the next President of the United States, Barack Obama.”

    Norton, who has served in Congress for nine terms, was Yale’s Class Day speaker in 2005.  Her full speech is after the jump. (more…)

  6. Clinton delegate to young people: ‘Heal all wounds’

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    Dan Schneider (left), a Clinton delegate from California, tried to convince other delegates to rally behind Senator Barack Obama.

    By Thomas Kaplan

    DENVER, 2:32 p.m. — With pundits bloviating about the so-called split in the Democratic Party, Dan Schneider was mad as hell, and he wasn’t going to take it anymore.

    During a question-and-answer session during the Democratic National Committee’s youth caucus this afternoon, the 31-year-old schoolteacher from Pleasanton, Calif., took his turn at the microphone not to ask a question, but to make a plea.  To the young people in attendance, he had a simple request: Throw your support — and your vote — behind Obama.

    And it wasn’t just empty talk: Schneider, a Clinton delegate himself, planned to do exactly that.

    “I think we could bring the party together right now,” he said in an interview afterward.  “I think that would heal all wounds.” (more…)

  7. The story behind ‘Yes We Can’

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    By Thomas Kaplan

    DENVER, 2:23 p.m. — This winter, the musical artist known as will.i.am was feeling blue. His single album had flopped. He had a falling out with his manager.

    Then came the song that changed it all.

    Six months after the Black Eyed Peas frontman gave the campaign of Senator Barack Obama a shot in the arm with his widely-circulated music video adapted from one of the presumptive Democratic nominee’s speeches, will.i.am reminisced Monday about how it all began.

    Heading into the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8, the 33-year-old said he was genuinely undecided between Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton LAW ’73. Then he watched Obama’s concession speech, delivered to a raucous crowd in Nashua.

    “It was inspiration,” he told a crowd of reporters and young Democrats gathered for an event about youth involvement in the presidential race. “I was like, ‘Wow, this man can inspire me when he lost. How is he going to inspire me when he wins?’”

    (more…)

  8. Obama’s HQ fueled by coffee, youth

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    By Zack Abrahamson/Staff Reporter 

    Sam Schoenburg ’11 does not have five minutes.

    “You know, I really don’t right now. I’m sorry, I’ve got to get this done,” he says, typing furiously on a keyboard at Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s Des Moines headquarters.

    The Silliman College freshman is 336 miles from home, surrounded by new volunteers he does not know and running on five hours of sleep. And a doughnut.

    (more…)

  9. Obama buzz fills empty campus

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    By June Torbati/Staff Reporter 

    Before most undergraduates had even returned to New Haven from their winter breaks, Yale’s campus was already buzzing with campaign organizing in the run-up to what some have called “super-duper Tuesday” on Feb. 5, when 24 states are scheduled to hold their primary elections.

    Hundreds of Connecticut supporters, grass-roots organizers and campaign officials for Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign convened Saturday morning at Yale’s Afro-American Cultural Center to urge locals to get involved in the Illinois freshman’s campaign in the remaining weeks before Connecticut’s primary.

    (more…)

  10. State in spotlight, city leaders endorse Obama

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    By Victor Zapana/Staff Reporter 

    Usually rendered irrelevant by its late primary date, Connecticut is poised this year to finally make a difference in the presidential nominating contests as one of 24 states voting on the Feb. 5 “Super-Duper Tuesday” — and local leaders are noticing.

    (more…)