The man behind the Presidency.

I am pretty sure I posted about this story back during those frantic days of the 2008 campaign.  But somebody just sent it to me recently, and I think it deserves to be shared again. Especially for those who have started to lose faith in our President.

(You will have to forgive some of the sappiness of the original article. Apparently that is due to the writing style, and possibly due somewhat to the translation from Norwegian to English.)

Courtesy of Leisha's Randon Thoughts and Ponderings: 

Mary was a newlywed and ready to move to Norway, but was stopped at the airport because she didn’t have enough money for the trip. Then a stranger turned up and paid for her. 

Mary Menth Andersen was 31 years old at the time and had just married Norwegian Dag Andersen. She was looking forward to starting a new life in Åsgårdstrand in Vestfold with him. But first she had to get all of her belongings across to Norway. The date was November 2nd, 1988. 

At the airport in Miami things were hectic as usual, with long lines at the check-in counters. When it was finally Mary’s turn and she had placed her luggage on the baggage line, she got the message that would crush her bubbling feeling of happiness. 

"You’ll have to pay a 103 dollar surcharge if you want to bring both those suitcases to Norway," the man behind the counter said. 

Mary had no money. Her new husband had travelled ahead of her to Norway, and she had no one else to call. 

"I was completely desperate and tried to think which of my things I could manage without. But I had already made such a careful selection of my most prized possessions," says Mary. 

Although she explained the situation to the man behind the counter, he showed no signs of mercy. 

"I started to cry, tears were pouring down my face and I had no idea what to do. Then I heard a gentle and friendly voice behind me saying, That’s OK, I’ll pay for her." 

Mary turned around to see a tall man whom she had never seen before.

He had a gentle and kind voice that was still firm and decisive. 

"The first thing I thought was, Who is this man?"

Although this happened 20 years ago, Mary still remembers the authority that radiated from the man. 

"He was nicely dressed, fashionably dressed with brown leather shoes, a cotton shirt open at the throat and khaki pants," says Mary. 

She was thrilled to be able to bring both her suitcases to Norway and assured the stranger that he would get his money back. 

The man wrote his name and address on a piece of paper that he gave to Mary. 

She thanked him repeatedly. 

When she finally walked off towards the security checkpoint, he waved goodbye to her. 

The piece of paper said ‘Barack Obama’ and his address in Kansas, which is the state where his mother comes from. 

Mary carried the slip of paper around in her wallet for years, before it was thrown out. 

"He was my knight in shining armor," says Mary, smiling. 

She paid the 103 dollars back to Obama the day after she arrived in Norway. 

At that time he had just finished his job as a poorly paid community worker* in Chicago, and had started his law studies at prestigious Harvard university. 

In the spring of 2006 Mary’s parents had heard that Obama was considering a run for president, but that he had still not decided. They chose to write a letter in which they told him that he would receive their votes. 

At the same time, they thanked Obama for helping their daughter 18 years earlier. 

In a letter to Mary’s parents dated May 4th, 2006 and stamped ‘United States Senate, Washington DC’, Barack Obama writes: 

‘I want to thank you for the lovely things you wrote about me and for reminding me of what happened at Miami airport. I’m happy I could help back then, and I’m delighted to hear that your daughter is happy in Norway. Please send her my best wishes. 

Sincerely, Barack Obama, United States senator’. 

The parents sent the letter on to Mary. 

Here is a picture of Mary Menth Anderson, her husband, and the letter from Senator Barack Obama.

If you have ever wondered why I post those pictures of President Obama with the babies, it is because to me they say something more profound than ANYTHING written about the President on any website, or said about the President on any television program.

They reveal something honest and fundamental about our President. Something that is hidden beneath the surface, yet felt by those who get close, by those who are sensitive to more than what they can hear or see.

This story reveals the same thing.

Politicians are masters at creating the facade of who they WANT you to see when you look at them.  But what are they like when they don't know they are being studied?  In other words who are they really?

In the case of President Obama we can see who he is by how he lovingly interacts with his family, how babies and children relate to him, and how he once helped Mary Menth Anderson, when nobody was watching, and it did not mean extra votes in an election. 

When it was just the right thing to do.

"And a little child will lead them."

As a man who digs babies, a political observer, and simply a human being, this comparison speaks volumes to me.

(H/T to O'Toolefan, perhaps the MOST prolific tweeter on the internets.)

Most Backers of Arizona Law Support Humane Immigration Reform

¡Hola! Everybody…
Not being able to write is a fuckin’ bummer! I usually don’t re-post material from other blogs, but the following is something I felt needed to be shared.

* * *

"The Immigrant" 1903

Shocker: Most Backers of Arizona Law Support Humane Immigration Reform

by Frank Sharry

[Note: From the outset, I have noted that early polls regarding Arizona’s Racist Immigration law (SB1070) were basically useless. For one, many Americans don’t really stay on top of the news like the rest of us political junkies. Therefore, not that many people actually knew much about SB1070, let alone its constitutional ramifications. The vast majority of Americans get what little news they devour from the mainstream media. Therefore, a poll two days or even two weeks after the passage of SB1070 might not be measuring a response to the actual law. It might be measuring a concern over immigration, generally speaking. The people behind SB1070 are documented extremist hate groups who have fought tooth and nail against immigration reform. SB1070 isn't reform, it’s codified racism. The following article attempts to peek behind the curtain and yields some interesting insights]

With national polls showing majority support for Arizona’s harsh immigration law, you probably think these voters are hard liners determined to rid the country of immigrants and deny a path to legal status for all of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S., right?

Wrong.

Here’s a shocker: four out of five voters who support Arizona’s new “papers-please” law also support comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented. On the flip side, a paltry one in five support rounding up and deporting everyone here illegally.

In a bipartisan survey sponsored by America’s Voice Education Fund and conducted by Lake Research Partners and Public Opinion Strategies of 800 registered voters nationwide, with an oversample of 300 Latino registered voters, we sought to understand the motivations and sentiments underlying the top line support for Arizona’s tough immigration law. Here is what we found:

• Three out of five voters nationwide do indeed support the Arizona law. Not surprisingly, a majority of Latino voters oppose the law.
• At the same time, four out of five of the voters who support the Arizona law also support comprehensive immigration reform with a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. Only one out of five support deportation as the preferred policy option when asked what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.
• In addition, strong majorities believe that illegal immigration is a national problem, prefer comprehensive reform to Arizona-style laws in their state, and want the problem of illegal immigration acted on now.

Here are the numbers. Like other polls, our latest shows that 60% of voters support the Arizona law nationwide, while 23% oppose it. No news there. But consider this finding: Fully 78% of all voters supported comprehensive immigration reform. Moreover, a whopping 84% of those who supported the Arizona law also supported comprehensive immigration reform.

This bears repeating:

More than 4 out of 5 voters who support the Arizona law support comprehensive reform with a path to citizenship. And 67% of them strongly support comprehensive immigration reform.

How can voters enthusiastically support an Arizona law aimed at expelling undocumented immigrants and even more enthusiastically support comprehensive immigration reform that brings undocumented immigrants onto a path to citizenship? What underpins these seemingly irreconcilable points of view?

At the core, voters’ support was rooted in frustration with lack of action at the federal level. When we asked voters why they supported Arizona’s law, the number one answer -- by a whopping 52% -- was that voters believed the federal government had failed to solve the problem. Only 28% said it was because they thought the law would reduce illegal immigration, and only 12% supported it because they thought it would reduce crime.

Furthermore, by a margin of 53% to 18% voters prefer a comprehensive national solution to a version of Arizona’s law in their own state. This is consistent with the finding that voters believe immigration is a national problem appropriately dealt with at a federal level (56%) rather than handled by individual states (22%).

The passage of the Arizona law has not lessened these voters’ appetite for immediate federal action. Three quarters of voters (76%) want action taken now, as opposed to waiting for action, and two thirds (67%) strongly desire action now.

Voters were asked to choose between three policy options: deporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally; having them stay only as temporary workers; or requiring them to undergo registration with the government, background checks, payment of taxes, learning English, and going to the back of the citizenship line. The results show 22% chose deportation, 8% chose the temporary worker solution, and the third option, the path to legal status, was by far the most popular at 64%.(emphasis added)

Finally, we found that comprehensive reform unites rather than divides Americans, with 77% of Latinos in favor, roughly the same proportion as the electorate as a whole. In fact, comprehensive immigration reform is more popular overall than the Arizona law with every political and demographic group of voters, except for southern Republicans who are equally supportive of both.

Is our poll an outlier? Not at all. Our findings, especially with regard to support for a path to legal status for those in the U.S. illegally, are consistent with what other in-depth polls found. For example, an AP-GfK-Univision poll conducted in early May found that 59% of all voters, and 86% of Hispanic voters, favor “a legal way for illegal immigrants already in the United States to become U.S. citizens.” A CBS/New York Times poll from late April/early May found that 64% of voters favor agree that “illegal immigrants who are currently working in the U.S… should be allowed to stay in their jobs and to eventually apply for U.S. citizenship, or they should be allowed to stay in their jobs only as guest workers.” A late May NBC poll found that 65% of voters nationwide support “allowing undocumented immigrants who are already in the country to pay a fine, learn English, and go back to the line for the opportunity to become American citizens.”

Actually, these results are consistent with polling conducted over the years. In the words of Markos Moulitsas, support for comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship has been “gaudy” for some time. What may surprise many, however, is that voters can simultaneously support the Arizona law and support comprehensive immigration reform even more intensely.

So, to recap, voters – frustrated with federal government inaction -- much prefer “doing something” to “doing nothing.” They increasingly want the problem of illegal immigration addressed now. They understand Arizona but want comprehensive immigration reform. Few want to simply round up and deport all immigrants in the U.S illegally.

Politically, this means that the conventional wisdom about how to interpret majority support for the Arizona law is, as usual, wrong. It means the clucking over at Fox News and chest-thumping by Arizona’s Republican leaders is misplaced. It means that voters want their leaders to recognize the frustration with illegal immigration, to step up at the national level and to replace a broken and chaotic system with a legal and orderly one now.

Instead of ducking it, Democrats should lean hard into the immigration issue, knowing that the problem-solving and pragmatism embedded in their support for comprehensive reform connects them with the broad majority of Americans who are hungry for solutions on this complex issue. It means Republicans who pander to an angry anti-immigrant base will not only continue alienating Latino voters, but will have a very difficult time expanding their support beyond that base.

But won’t a battle over immigration reform mobilize the right, renew the “amnesty” attack, and turn these initial polls around? No. Recent polling by Hart Research Associates shows that comprehensive immigration reform holds up under the toughest attacks on some of the toughest terrain. And consistent with the findings regarding Arizona support trumped by support for comprehensive immigration reform, following a simulated legislative battle over immigration Democrats who support it actually improve their overall standing with voters.

If only the meaning of the nationwide reaction to Arizona’s tough new law broke through to more in the political class. At least Chris Mathews of MSNBC’s Hardball seems to get it. Watch the video in which he concludes that voters want solutions now and yet much prefer comprehensive reform with a path to legal status. He concludes:

“... So why is it so hard to do what the American people -- most of us -- so plainly want done?”

An excellent question. If anything, support for the Arizona law proves that the American people are growing increasingly impatient with Washington’s ineptitude on immigration.

Cross posted at America's Voice and Huffington Post

A note on the cartoon (not used in the original post):

“The Immigrant” (1903) “Is he an acquisition or a detriment?” So asks this timeless Judge cartoon, in which the man just off the boat is a mute witness to the debate swirling around him: “He is a menace;” “He brings me cheap labor;” “He cheapens my labor;” “He brings disease;” “He is brawn and muscle for my country;” “He makes votes for me;” and finally, “He is a puzzle to me.” No one seems more puzzled by the cacophony than the immigrant himself.