Word: reformator
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...invigorating change was bubbling just below the surface of this gathering. Young, black Democrats like Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, and Adrian Fenty, mayor of Washington, D.C., talked openly about the straitjacketing effect of special interests on the Democratic party - especially the teachers unions, with their resistance to education reform. It is an opinion that Barack Obama shares, or at least used to share. In his memoir Dreams from My Father, he expressed his frustration at the educational establishment, calling it "the biggest source of resistance" on behalf of "the status...
...China? Will Party hard-liners, emboldened by the world's timid response to their heavy-handed pre-Games crackdown on dissent, continue to tighten their grip on power? Or will the spirit of civic activism that arose from relief efforts after the May earthquake in Sichuan be revived? Could reform-minded Party officials - like those who approved the publication of Southern Window's special issue - gain ground in their drive to ease control over areas such as the courts and the media...
...worried they are primed to boil over. "There are serious issues that have been accumulating, including ethnic problems in Tibet and Xinjiang as well as social issues and conflicts, that have been temporarily covered up by force to guarantee a successful Olympics," says Peking University law professor and reform advocate He Weifang. "I cannot predict whether there will be an immediate outbreak of all these problems after the Olympics. But there will be an outbreak if the government does not take steps to tackle the domestic problems...
Back during the Democratic primary campaign, there was John Edwards. He had an ambitious plan for health-care reform, I believe, but I couldn't tell you a thing about it. We all knew two things about him: he (like Biden) lost a child in an automobile accident, and his wife had inoperable cancer. (Now we know a third thing about Edwards, which illustrates the peril of drawing too many conclusions from a candidate's life story as framed by the candidate and his or her campaign.) And, of course, there was Hillary Clinton. She never made an explicit issue...
...also began his transformation from party man to party maverick. He forged alliances with Senators John Kerry, to normalize relations with Vietnam, and Ted Kennedy, to promote immigration reform. He crusaded against tobacco, steroids, corporate criminals, ultimate fighting, a sweetheart deal for Boeing and all kinds of pork. He crusaded for a patients' bill of rights and even a boxers' bill of rights. He got great press, and colleagues have often rolled their eyes at his ubiquitous television presence, but the Sunday shows wouldn't have invited him so often if he hadn't become so interesting - and so candid...