I do have a lot of reasons for supporting Obama. I wouldn't say a word if you didn't ask, but I know (hope) you're not going to give me a hard time. First, I will say that I would have preferred John McCain over George W, and I was very sad to see how much of himself he had to give up to run a national campaign. If it had to be a Republican eight years ago, McCain had a lot of good qualities, and it was tragic what Rove and Bush did to him during the 2000 campaign. Now, it occurs to me that if you are still a staunch Bush/Cheney supporter that you won't agree, but so be it.
Bush/Cheney have something to do with why I support Obama so very strongly. From my perspective, not meaning to be argumentative, they have gutted our country with their policies. They came into office with a neo-con plan, and used a national tragedy to manipulate the public into supporting their longstanding neo-con plan to remake the middle east by lying and manipulating the truth about weapons of mass destruction. It has been an eight year rape and pillage of the US by arms dealers such as Haliburton and dysfunctional corporations, ending in a massive 700 billion dollar hand out to their supporters. They have nationalized the banks and much of the free market. Talk about socialism, Bush/Cheney have moved our country closer to socialism than at any other time in history. Under Bush/Cheney we went from a 5 trillion dollar surplus to a multi-trillion dollar deficit. Tax cuts went to the wealthiest 2% of the population. My taxes have personally gone up. The Bill of Rights is shredded. Torture is our new national policy. The Geneva convention is for other people. All of the goodwill generated after 9/11 has been squandered. We are now the most hated country on earth. And we have brought down the financial markets of the entire world with our failed policies.
Ok, you're probably fuming by now, but that is the groundwork. There are a few things that I know personally about Obama. He is an intellectual. He is one of the brightest minds of our generation. He is honest and places high value on personal integrity. He has been preparing for this job for his entire life. He has a profound understanding of international politics. Whenever I would sit down and talk to Obama it would be about the intricacies of how governments around the world work, about the economy, about international relations. He knew more about the Soviet military missile plans and the US defense systems at 18 than I have ever learned. He could talk about how many of what kind of missiles and where they are. He knows history. He knew the details of every treaty and trade agreement the US made - as a kid. Seniors would stop us to discuss their dissertations on the Soviet military with him while I just waited slack jawed. And this was before he got one of the finest educations available. The depth and breadth of his understanding of political history and current events of the US and most of the countries in the world was astounding. I thought I loved obscure topics, but I never stumped him, came close of course. ;)
He is a nice person. He used to call his Grandma when he left the library at 2 am because it was still early in Hawaii, and she would worry about him. He is open and not judgmental. When I would say something rude to someone he would bring it up later in a quiet way and say something about how did it make that person feel, then drop it. Of course, that annoyed me at the time, but I can see that he was trying to do what seemed like the right thing, not trying to annoy me, just questioning unkindness. Because he was ultimately very kind and thoughtful. He never got mad or lost his temper even when he was very mad.
So, enough about my anecdotal perspective. I definitely had to put aside my personal knowledge of 'Barry' in order not to get freaked out about the surreal quality of seeing him on television so frequently.
As a candidate, I felt and still feel that we need a brilliant and inspiring leader in office now, an intellectual. We need someone who can understand the complexity of the problems facing our country. We need a very strong leader. And we need someone who can put together a team of the best and brightest.
When Obama first started campaigning, I was not convinced by him because I liked the idea of a tough broad like Hillary being the first woman president. But during the fierce primary process, I started watching them both speak. Barack had a message the likes of which I have never had the good fortune to hear in my lifetime. Hillary had the same old Clinton attack, take no prisoners, ruthless, us versus them attitude that had made the Clinton presidency controversial.
But Barack had this incredible speech about moving past the politics of divisiveness, about the country coming together and healing, and creating a new order in which Democrats and Republicans work together. And then he stuck to it. He never attacked Hillary Clinton with any of the mud that the Republicans would have used against her. He ran a tough primary, but without ever stooping to drubbing her reputation or impugning her past. Next, he never said one negative word about Sarah Palin. Unbelievable. If ever a red herring was dangled in front of a candidate, she was it. He refused to go negative when it would have been a popular thing to do in the sense that he could have run an angry campaign that would have fired up people - a campaign railing against the arms dealers and deregulators who have left our country a shambles - and think how those remarks aggravate you - because he did think about it - and he didn't do it. That is a conscious choice to try to bring harmony to a divided country.
Next we need a president who can put together a team of the best and the brightest in the country and inspire them to find solutions to the problems we face being in two wars and having brought the world markets to a near collapse. Look no further than his campaign. He picked people who put together a campaign the likes of which has never been seen before. He is the first democratic candidate ever to outspend the republican candidate. Ever. His team reached out across the internet and inspired 3 million people to donate 650 million dollars. 3 million people donated. All of those people felt empowered. But his campaign didn't stop there. They saw what happened when Rove put together a ground team of the religious right and Bush won in 2004. They learned. And Obama's campaign reached out to students and community organizers around the country. In states where the Republicans had 50 offices, Obama had 150. This is all part of a well thought out plan to succeed.
Which brings me to one point that is again personal. In my entire life, I have never seen someone achieve success with the steadiness and self-confidence of Barack. We both tried to transfer to Ivy League schools when we were sophomores. He got in. We both stayed up all night to write our Poli Sci papers. He got A+'s. When I stepped into an empty, sunny street in New York City after having been kicked rudely out of an interview for not being prepared, tears streaming down my face, who did I see walking towards me into the sunlight. Yes, on this completely deserted street, on a rare sunny day in winter, it was Barack Obama. I desperately looked for a place to hide, an alley, an unlocked door, jeez even a trash bin. But it was just me, concrete and steel buildings, the brilliant sun and Barry strolling along whistling. And as he approached me, and I froze in place, he got a huge, joyful smile and came up and gave me a hug and started talking about what a beautiful day it was. He looked a little quizzical when he saw the tears, but I just smiled and lied through my teeth about how great everything was and sent him on his merry way. He radiated even more than that brilliant sun.
He was on his way to work. To a job. A job he liked. A well paying job. At the time it made me miserable but now I get it.
The point of that story is that Obama has this inner light guiding him to success. He plans. He makes good plans, then works hard to stick to them, then eventually succeeds. And that is a hell of a quality. That is a quality that our country needs right now. At this moment in time, to have this person come out of the blue, out of nowhere, who is exactly what we need is extraordinary. We need the man who inspires millions. We need the man who can make good plans, and work hard enough to achieve success. We need the person who put together the team that ran the kind of campaign that will be studied for years to come.
When Beth was in law school and we were at Paul's house at the beach, she started quizzing Obama about when was he going to go to law school, the way she can really grill a person. He was unfazed and told her that everyone has to listen to their inner voice to find their own way. That shut her up of course, not having any idea what he was talking about. But he is guided from within in a very spiritual way. And I think he would be the first to acknowledge that it is important to work on your spiritual side and have a relationship with God.
Another point, that I have been hoping for the past couple years is that I hope he gets the presidency now because he owes no one anything. Everyone goes to Washington D.C. clean and idealistic, but the money and the power seep into every crevice. Hillary Clinton is now indebted to major special interest groups. John McCain faced public censure for his support of Keating. George W arrived owing huge favors to diverse groups including the Saudi royal family who made him rich by investing in his oil firm for the purpose of deducting the loss. Cheney owed the defense industry (aka arms dealers... ;) ) big time. No one can ever stay clean. But at this moment in time Obama is clean. He owes 3 million people, but he does not owe the defense contractors, the bankers, the Saudis, the thousands of rich and powerful special interests who do their best to control government policy. He is free to do what he does: think, plan, put together a team of the best and the brightest, and inspire people to do the hard work and make the sacrifices that will be needed to get to the success that is waiting.
This is a job he has been preparing for his entire life. Soviet aggression is not new to him. He understood the history and political processes of the former-USSR better as an 18 year old teenager than George W does now as sitting president. He is a constitutional law professor. He understands our United States Constitution and treasures it.
And one of the most amazing parts of all this is that Obama did this completely alone when compared to all others. The Bush family has a long legacy of wealth, power and holding public office. McCain comes from a family with a very strong father figure and a long line of successful military officers. Al Gore's father was a Senator. Mit Romney's father was a Senator. McCain's second wife is incredibly wealthy. John Kerry's wife is also unbelievably wealthy. But Obama had nothing. He knew little about his father. His mother was a single mother, often overseas working on her phd. He grew up with his grandparents in a tiny apartment and only got to go to a good school because his grandmother was able to get him a scholarship. He was no one. No connections. Almost no family. Not even a distant father checking on him. He got himself through school on scholarships and student loans. And when he graduated from Colombia and got a well paying job writing for a business journal, he quit it to make next to nothing in the slums of Chicago to try to help people organize themselves. And when he got out of law school, a hundred grand in debt, he didn't take the great jobs offered him, but moved back to the slums of Chicago and worked again for little money to help disadvantaged people.
That's not all he did, of course. He got some great jobs, well-paying jobs. But there were times when he chose to serve others. That's what his mother and grandparents taught him was an important value. It's very Midwestern. You help out your neighbors, and those less fortunate. It's one of the values of this country that I admire the most.
And he kept at this work while he lost all of his nuclear family. His father died a few months before he went to Kenya to meet him. His mother died very young of cancer which her HMO refused to treat with new drugs. His grandfather died. And the day before the election, on Monday of this week, his grandmother died. The one he used to call from the late night reading room because the time was earlier in Hawaii. He would call his grandmother so she wouldn't worry and make me wait because he didn't think I should walk alone across campus at two in the morning. I'll admit, it kind of annoyed me at the time, but in retrospect that is the kind of son I would want to raise.
So, it's a combination of the power of his personal story and inner strength, and a respect for his intellect and his ability to build a winning team of the best and the brightest, then inspire them to accomplish more than anyone has done before that gradually put me solidly behind Obama. It is his dignity and self-confidence that inspire people around the world to once again look to the US for leadership. His years of unrecognized preparation for this moment inspire me. His outsider status as a person who is free to make decisions because they are good for the country, not because he owes someone a favor. His powerful curiosity and desire to learn. His steadiness in the middle of a storm. When Wall St. first collapsed he talked to people who really understand the problems, put thought into his response. He didn't jump half cocked on the first plane to Washington.
He is unflappable. Indefatigable. Thoughtful. He actually thinks before he speaks. An extraordinary communicator. As much as I love knowing that "man and fish can live in harmony", eight years of unintelligible gibberish is enough.
He's a better person than I am. He would never write all those rude things about Bush/Cheney that I wrote to someone who might be offended. But I think I can tolerate being outclassed and out-successed and out-shined so long as he brings with him to office that light that shines through him, the way the sun did on a lonely street in New York.
Ok, don't yell at me for rambling on. Remember you did ask.
K, you seriously should watch Obama and McCain's speeches on YouTube. We are part of history. Millions of people who never voted before, voted because Barack made them feel like they weren't worthless, like they could be a part of this country also. And McCain gave a moving speech about the historical nature of this election. It is not just the first African American president, but really the first president who was elected by the little people who have no lobbyists and no wealth.
And you know this person. He has turned into a brilliant orator. Your grandchildren are going to want to hear about Barack. This is much bigger than politics.
Do you remember how so many people were against Kennedy because he was Catholic? It was a huge deal because he was the first Catholic to run for and become President. If your parents had gone to school with JFK, wouldn't you be a little interested? He broke the religious divide that treated Catholics as second class citizens.
In the same way, Barack will be the last first black President of the United States. Here is a rare chance to move forward, past race. All the things that you are afraid of for your boys, that affirmative action will hurt them, he is putting those things in the past.
I'm not trying to sway your politics, or annoy you. Just point out that you are part of some of the most remarkable history that will be made in our lifetime. Don't miss it. His rhetoric is beautiful. But that is not a bad thing. You don't have to vote for him, or change your views. But give him a listen. He is a sum of more than his parts. There is a real light shining through him. Yes, maybe it is calculated to achieve an end, perhaps written by someone else, all of that. But there are few chances to hear someone like this.
Yes, he could even fail. Quite possibly no one can get us out of the current situation with collapsing economies and multiple wars, hated around the world, jobless rate soaring. Perhaps no one. But it is going to be a hell of an effort. Don't miss it because of the old politics. I almost missed it by dismissing him as someone who was just another guy I went to school with. I'm so glad that I took a second look. I'm not suggesting you change your opinion of him, the way I did. Very few people live up to their potential in this world. Very few people have a vision of how to make the world a better place. Don't miss it like I almost did.
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