cross-posted at MyDD

This weekend, the Washington Post and the NY Times both carried stories about Senators Clinton and Obama actively courting African-American women in South Carolina by campaigning in beauty shops and barbershops.

Well, tonight is the night for the Democratic forum that will be held at Howard University (Washington, DC) that will air on PBS tonight at 9 pm EST.
http://www.pbs.org/...

Tavis Smiley will moderate the All American Presidential Forum. Three journalists of color, Michel Martin, Ruben Navarette and DeWayne Wickham will ask questions of the candidates.

PBS will post the event online in case you miss it.

Please follow me to the other side:

I didn't see anyone post anything about the current debate going on CNN right now (7 pm EST) so I just wanted to give everyone the heads up about it. Jim Wallis set up the forum. Soledad O'Brian is the host and Jim Wallis asks some questions as well.

First up, John Edwards. Soledad has asked him about creationism and whether he agrees with gay marriage.

Follow me on the other side:

In earlier diaries here and here I discussed some preliminary remarks that Senator Obama made about his healthcare plan. I then asked some questions about the details of his plan. Today, Senator Obama formally announced his newhealthcare plan. This diary is intended as a follow up to my previous diaries to determine whether Senator's proposed plan that he revealed today answers my questions. Please follow me after the jump.

Over the past month or so, I've posted  this diary and this diary about Senator's Obama's preliminary outline of his healthcare plan. This diary is a continuation of this series with Senator Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan, which she announced today, as the focus.

As I stated in my previous diaries, I am an undecided voter. This diary as the previous diaries, is intended to gather information about Senator Clinton's healthcare plan so that I can make an informed decision in my state's primary.  I hope that her supporters here at dkos or someone from his staff help me find out the answers to these questions that I have.  Please follow me after the jump....

With the release of Newsweek's new poll numbers, which look good for us,
at this point in the campaign, if these numbers are true and hold up till November 2008, it looks like we're in good shape no matter who our nominee ultimately is (for the presidency).

I'm an undecided voter. With these new Newseek poll numbers, I don't feel like I have to weigh electability as a factor when ultimately choosing a nominee as I normally would.

One of the factors that I will be assessing when ultimately making my decision with whom to support is whether their personality, character and style of leadership will best meet the times that we are living in now. Is that person a dominator, an introvert, a good guy/gal, an innocent, an actor, a maintainer, a philosophe, or an extrovert?

Follow me after the jump to see what I mean:

In today's Washington Post, Senator Obama remarks upon the internal discussion that African Americans are having within our community about the negative influences within our culture:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is delivering pointed critiques of the African American community as he campaigns for its votes, lamenting that many of his generation are "disenfranchising" themselves because they don't vote, taking rappers to task for their language, and decrying "anti-intellectualism" in the black community, including black children telling peers who get good grades that they are "acting white."

Please follow me after the jump....

Almost a month ago, I posted a diary Questions about Obama's Preliminary Outline on His Healthcare Plan where I sought more information about Senator Obama's healthcare proposals.

The purpose of this diary is to continue that inquiry based upon comments and healthcare model of one of his healthcare advisors, David Cutler, a Harvard economist specializing in healthcare policies.

As I've stated in previous diaries and comments, I am an undecided voter. This diary is intended to gather information so that I can make an informed decision and is not intended to to slam Obama for his statements on healthcare that he has made so far or to compare his healthcare plan with his primary challengers. I hope that his supporters here at dkos or someone from his staff help me find out the answers to these questions that I have.  Please follow me after the jump....

In a recent campaign stop, Senator Obama started outlining his healthcare policy proposals and IMHO, we're getting a small glimpse of what type of healthcare plan Senator Obama will eventually propose.

The purpose of this diary is to provide a few comments about what Obama said recently at his healthcare forum at North Iowa Area Community College yesterday and to post questions about his plan that hopefully will be answered in his final policy proposal. This isn't a diary intended to slam Obama for his statements on healthcare that he has made so far or to compare his healthcare plan with his primary challengers. I hope that his supporters here at dkos or someone from his staff help me find out the answers to these questions that I have.  

An explanation of some of Senator Obama's policy proposals after the jump

Money saved by converting health record keeping into an electronic rather than paper process, early detection of chronic illnesses, and child wellness programs could help finance coverage for the uninsured

I can't believe it's the time of year when Tavis Smiley holds his Black State of the Union. It was pretty successful last year. The BSOTU released a book "The Covenant with Black America," an action plan to deal with several problems in the African-American community. Despite lack of mainstream media attention, the book eventually became a #1 NY Times Bestseller hit.

The event today is held at Hampton University. Gov Kaine (D-VA) welcomed the participants and mentioned that Virginia was celebrating Jamestown's 400th anniversary this year and that this year's celebration was going to be the first time that African-Americans, native Virginians accomplishments would be celebrated along with Europeans....

Tavis Smiley got the meeting started today by announcing the release of a new companion book to "The Covenant with Black America" called "The Convenant in Action." Tavis explained that the new book only costs $10 and would include stories about AA successfully completing the tasks called for in the Covenant's action plan.

Here's the link to the Maryland State Board of Elections website, where you can get the results:

http://www.elections.state.md.us/

The biggest race is among Ben Cardin, Kweisi Mfume, Josh Rales, Alan Lichtman etc. One of the things I will be looking towards in the results of this race is what percent support Rales ultimately gets? How successful were all those ads at the end of the day?

Follow me to the other side of this diary:

I just wanted to alert Maryland Kossacks to a few items about Ben Cardin, one of the Democratic candidates to replace the current Democratic Senator from Maryland-Paul Sarbanes.

First, there's a pretty decent Baltimore Sun profile of Congressman Cardin today. The article briefly discusses his personality and close ties to my Congressman Steny Hoyer as well as provides highlights of his legislative achievements.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/...

Please follow me to the other side of the jump...

I would say YES, YES, and definitely YES!! I think that the campaigns of O'Malley, Cardin and Mfume are focusing WAY too much on trying to garner the votes of people from Baltimore and Baltimore county at the detriment of other places in Maryland.

I'll give you my own county as an example. As I mentioned in a previous post where Maryland politics was discussed here at dkos, Charles County's demographics are rapidly changing:

I'm from Southern Maryland (Charles County) which is a little red but I wouldn't call it deep red. A lot of AA have moved to Charles County (Waldorf and the Western part of the county) recently. I hope that the campaigns don't write off this part of Maryland, b/c the demographics of this county is changing quite a bit and so this county may be getting a little bluer, while St. Mary's County and Calvert County are getting a little redder....

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Please follow me onto the other side:

Happy Father's Day!! As promised, it's Sunday afternoon and as I said in my last diary "The Covenant Reading Assignment"  http://www.dailykos.com/...

I want to discuss the first chapter of the book "The Covenant with Black America." In that last diary, I posted a series of questions that I hoped would get this conversation started. Some of the questions are posted on the other side of this diary:

Please follow me to the other side

Yesterday, in this diary The State of (and Covenant with) Black America  http://www.dailykos.com/... I suggested that we Kossacks should start reading the book "The Covenant with Black America" http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com/ to spur a weekly discussion about issues concerning AAs both online and offline at dkos.

I received mostly positive responses of my idea although there were a few voices of trepidation about the idea as well. Despite advice not to conduct these weekly discussions, I'm going to continue with this project. I just really, really hope that all participants in The Covenant discussions are respectful to everyone in the thread each week.

Hello Kossacks. After reading this diary by baratunde http://www.dailykos.com/... and Sunqueen212 http://www.dailykos.com/... and hearing snide comments by Byron York on Meet the Press about the lack of AA participation at Yearlykos, I was wondering if there was any interest of having a weekly blog session to talk about the topic "The State of Black America?" I could start an open thread say on Sunday to talk about issues concerning AAs that arose the previous week offline or maybe here at Dkos. Maybe as a way to get the discussion going, we could begin to blog about the book "The Covenant with Black America" in the open thread? http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com/

Hello everyone. This is just an update on the Opposition Research Project that I proposed in Sunday's diary:

Dkos Action Plan: Finding Opposition Research on Republicans

http://www.dailykos.com/...

In that diary I proposed that Kossacks work together to find opposition research on incumbent Republicans for the 2006 elections and eventually the 2008 elections. In yesterday's diary, Dkos Action Plan: Opposition Research on Southwest Incumbents? I proposed that we should investigate 5 Republican incumbents from the Southwest including Bilbray-CA-50.
 http://www.dailykos.com/...

Hello everyone. I appreciate your responses to my last diary, Dkos Action Plan: Finding Opposition Research on Republicans:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

In my last diary, I suggested that we Kossacks collaberate together to find opposition research on incumbent Republicans. After receiving many suggestions on who we should investigate, I came to the conclusion that there are way too many incumbents to just investigate one representative per week. So I propose that we investigate 4 representatives per week and still just one senator per month over the summer.

more below