I've been thinking a lot about why the Obama campaign decided to announce their VP choice through a massive text message, rather than the more traditional campaign event announcement.  Al Giordano already covered the strategic advantage, writing:

With the campaign giving every American that text-messages the letters "VP" to telephone number 62262 (that's touchtone-speak for "O-B-A-M-A") the simultaneous opportunity to be the "first to know" about his choice (and thus gathering a multitude more of voters whose cell phone numbers are in his database and will be contacted with other news, invitations, fund appeals and requests over the coming months), there would be a distinct advantage to holding off on the announcement until during the convention itself.

The difficulty inherent in this strategy is that it puts a huge amount of pressure on Obama to really "wow" his supporters with his VP pick.  Does Obama really have a VP trick up his sleeve, I've wondered?  What's he trying to pull?

Then it hit me: (Click over the fold to read more)

This article on Politico.com could be the bright spot of McCain's week.  After a week that saw him change the citizenship of 300 million Americans http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/... deploy a quasi-Presidential envoy to Georgia http://www.allheadlinenews.com/... and, yet again, making a statement that would surely end anybody else's campaign http://www.allheadlinenews.com/... comes this BIG (read: minor) press victory.

I was reminded that I have a few Chicago Treasures diaries in the wings - so I'm posting one tonight.  But - I'm going to use the intro for a brief nephew-Danny intro.

(For those who have not heard/read, my 3 1/2 year old nephew lost the ability to walk - or move his legs - about a month ago.  Diagnosed with Acute Transverse Myelitis, after a week of hospitalization & treatment, he moved his leg.  He was released the next day.  The end of that week, he started to crawl, soon after, to stand when he could hold a railing.  Last week he started "furniture surfing."  My humble and sincere thanks to everyone who has thought good thoughts or prayed or lit candles or whatever - for Danny.)

Today, Danny walked from the car to the playground, holding onto his mommy's hand.  To quote Danny's phone conversation with me yesterday, "Hi, Aunt Barb.  I moved my leg.  I moved my foot.  Poopy.  Poopy.  Poopy."

    Regardless of how many (or few) Democratic candidates for the House and Senate may benefit from Barack Obama's candidacy, there's one contest in which Obama could play a decisive role.  

    Next year, the International Olympic Committee will select the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics.  The four finalists are Tokyo, Madrid, Rio De Janeiro and Chicago.   It's unlikely that the IOC will go back to Asia or Spain so quickly, so it's probably a two-town contest.   Rio has the edge, representing a continent which has never hosted the Summer games.   Chicago has a couple of problems, including no plans for a permanent Olympic Stadium and the need to play some soccer games as far away as Minnesota.

    But, if all goes well, Chicago may have one very strong card to play.   Chicago's bid may benefit from international admiration for Barack Obama.  The 2016 Games would take place at the tail end of what we can only hope with be President Obama's second term.    In additional to declaring the games open, President Obama might also provide some of the outside shooting of which American Olympic basketball teams always seem to be short.

Last Saturday, The Gryffin and I tried something new - a Volksmarch.  A friend who is on the same diet program as I had told me about her Volksmarch up and around the "Crazy Horse" statue in the Black Hills - it's a once a year event sponsored by the local chapter of the AVA - the American Volkssport Association. (Their website is ava.org, but it seems to be unavailable at this time.)

About.com provides information not currently available via the AVA website.

Join me over the jump to learn about what we did on Saturday.

David Freddoso is a conservative political reporter for the right-wing website National Review Online. In his recent book The Case Against Barack Obama (subtitled The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate) Freddoso unsurprisingly outlines the case against Barack Obama which is essentially that Obama is not an idealistic reformer but in fact a shrewd and cynical political operator whose political career evolved from the milieu of corrupt Chicago-style machine politics.

I was too tough on Illinois State Senator James Meeks.

Last week, I offered both a commentary and rigorous interview of Rev. Meeks on the WLS airwaves as to Meeks' controversial declaration that he will bus thousands of Chicago Public School (CPS) students up to New Trier High School on Chicago's ritzy North Shore for the first day of school next month to protest state education funding inequities.

For those of you in NW Indiana, we have some exciting news...

This weekend, 21st Century Democrats will be doing  a training in conjunction with Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s and Alderman’s Sandi Jackson’s campaigns focusing on training grassroots activists in urban areas.

In the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, arch-villain The Joker blows up the Gotham City Hospital which disappears into a fireball of smoke and flames. Most film goers probably didn't realize that this was not a model or a computer generated image. The film crew actually exploded part of an abandoned factory only a few blocks from where I live. It was the old Brach's Candy plant on Chicago's West Side, a major landmark to anyone who travels on the CTA Green Line out to the Austin neighborhood or on to Oak Park and Forest Park.

What is left of the Brachs' Candy factory lies crumbling along Cicero Avenue, frequented only by the homeless, the professional junk scavengers, the graffiti artists and the urban adventurers who love to risk life and limb clambering around abandoned buildings. Brachs is only one example. Today most of Chicago's former industrial glory is a Machu Picchu of weedy rusting ruins or has been plowed under to grow a crop of yuppie condo buildings.

­Twas not always thus.­­

This is an article I wrote for a Chicago-based news and commentary website--The Windy Citizen.  I thought it might be interesting to you all.

Community organizer

If you've heard the term, you likely learned about it through Barack Obama's memoir or one of his speeches where he talks about his time working in poor neighborhoods on Chicago's South Side in the 1980s. He refers to this time in his life a lot.  Obama leans on it, hard, while stumping. But what does it mean?

"One of my fundamental beliefs from my days as a community organizer is that real change comes from the bottom up ... And there's no more powerful tool for grassroots organizing than the Internet."
-Barack Obama

What do community organizers actually do? How do they do it? And how has Obama's experience as a community organizer shaped his run for the presidency?

I got an interesting viral email today, forwarded to me by someone I normally trust.  It contains pictures of an ultra-modern building under the caption "Can you guess what this is?".  The more I looked at the pictures, the more I could see the purpose of the structure (it's a prison).  And the punchline...  according to this email, it's the new Cook County Correctional Center, in Chicago, Illinois.  Here is some of the text of the email:

I guess if I ever break the law, I'd better do it in Illinois!  
Homeless people should have it so good!  
Once again the taxpayer gets stung.  
It also shows that in most cases the quality of life for prisoners has improved considerably from what you might expect.

And I always thought prison was for punishment!!!!!

More to follow...

Originally posted at my blog.

"Perhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary."

Ryan Lizza, Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama, New Yorker, July 21, 2008

The question is which Chicago shaped Obama -- the political machine of the Daleys and Black Wards, the populist moment of Mayor Harold Washington, liberal, independent politics, or the feisty neighborhood world of Saul Alinsky and his followers?

The Senate Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure finally, finally held a hearing this past week, on July 24 on the role of tax subsidies in creating the boom in states leasing their highways. Tax and Financing Aspects of Highway Public-Private Partnerships. The hearing was before the Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure. Senator Bingaman's opening statement may be found here. It was not linked at the hearing website, so it took some searching to find it.

Here is what the witnesses had to say.

crossposted from unbossed

The media IS paying attention to labor. Well at least this key AP story is being picked up. So let’s give credit where it’s due for "Cintas workers criticize company's safety record". The A.P. story is about a group of current and former Cintas laundry workers who were injured on the job and are going across the country, speaking out about their working conditions (I blogged about this Tuesday).

Hi Everyone,

I recently blogged on who and what is Progressive Future, and why and where you could get more information, contribute to the cause, or even consider working for it. Since then the diary has been rescued, and lively debate has ensued. So, we've had some fun, and you might still want to check that out.

This diary is something of an update to that one. If you'll follow me under the fold, you can find out where today's canvas team is in San Francisco, where else Progressive Future is currently canvassing in the USA, and where to watch for more information and good times-- directly from Progressive Future!

However it best works for you, don't miss these chances for getting involved in taking our netroots-type organizing offline, and into the heart of America's neighborhoods!

From The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights, a non-partisan movement working to ensure that our courts protect and preserve equal justice, fairness, and opportunity.

A recent ruling from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals endorsed a controversial building regulation that bans observant Jews from posting mezuzot—literally translated as "door posts"—on their apartment doors.

The imbroglio started in 2004 when the board of Shoreline Towers in Chicago passed a hallway regulation that banned residents from placing outside their apartments: "[m]ats, boots, shoes, carts or objects of any sort." Lynne Bloch, who was on the board and chaired the very committee that authored the rules, sued Shoreline Towers after they used her rule as justification for repeatedly removing her mezuzah.

With out of control gas prices and the mercury here hovering in the 90s maxing out the grid, I think it's a good time to reflect on a huge, thriving race event that's being staged in Chicago for the 100th time. It employs clean, renewable energy to thrill and entertain tens of thousands. I think that this event also indirectly celebrates the Great Lakes Water Compact, signed by the eight Great Lakes states, which is headed to Washington this year to try to win Congressional consent.  
http://www.marketwatch.com/...

Clean fun follows below the fold...

Oh sure, you've read both of his autobiographies and you dig the way he presents himself.

You made phone calls and pounded the pavement for him.

You've even sent him money.

But do you really know the man?