Saturday, November 24, 2007

"Why I'm supporting Barack Obama"

Need more reasons to vote for Barack Obama? Check out this column from a DailyKos diarist:

"Why I'm supporting Barack Obama"

With only about 40 days left until the Iowa caucuses, it's time for all of us who have been undecided to start making up our minds. As voters, we have the privilege of waiting until stepping into the voting booths to make our choice. As activists, though, it's up to us to drive the direction of the primaries. For me, that means deciding who I'm going to support and then working to make it happen.

Last year, I've volunteered my time to Ned Lamont during the CT-Sen primary and to Patrick Murphy in the general election (of which many reports about my time there can be found in my diary history). This year, there's a lot more at stake - a choice that could define our country for a generation. We have a great field of candidates on our side, and any of them would be far better than the GOP candidate. But the one candidate who will drastically change America for the better and will turn the Democratic Party into the dominant political party for the foreseeable future is Barack Obama. Of that, there is no question in my mind now.

...Of the serious candidates, Obama is the only one whom I feel has been consistently liberal during his lifetime...

...his record as a community organizer, as one of the most liberal state senators in Illinois, and his ability to communicate a vision of progressive politics that appeals far beyond the left side of the political spectrum speaks to a generational talent not seen since the Kennedys in the 1960s. While rhetoric and campaign speeches are just words, I feel that he would be able to pass policies this country needs - universal health care, proper immigration reform, and so forth - quite easily because he knows how to talk with people - not to them - on issues in the proper context. He's also the candidate that I inherently trust the most. There are qualms with the other candidates that sometimes make it difficult for me to believe what they are saying, but with Obama, I trust that he is saying what he thinks - and he means it...

...The last reason, strangely enough, comes from John Edwards. It was in one of the debates, or possibly on the campaign trail, but he urges people to 'vote with their hearts'. Obama's background - a person of multiracial background who has lived around the world and overcame great odds to succeed - appeals to me (similarly, a person of mixed ethnicity who has lived in a few different places around the country and the world) as well. He represents a break from America's past, one where everyone - no matter how they look or where they come from - has the opportunity to make it in this country. In a time where it seems increasingly less and less that this is true, it would instill a great sense of hope and pride if he were to become president. No longer would American politics be about cynicism, which it seems to have been since the assassinations of the 1960s and the fallout from Watergate. Instead, it would be about what can be done to right the wrongs that exist - not about what wrongs will inevitably happen as a result of the government. I don't think that a simple slogan, such as "The Audacity of Hope", is a cure-all. But I do believe it helps to live the words you speak, and Obama has done that.

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