Open Your Minds. Vote for a New Way of Thinking. Vote Obama.

Hire someone who wants to tackle the issues of housing, jobs, health care, and education. John McCain is too wealthy and too pampered and too privileged to give a damn about the average American. Joe the Plumber is a foot soldier for McCain to order around. He means well but he has no clue what matters to the average American. He’ll tell you to join the military if you’re worried about health care, jobs, housing and education.  Can’t you hear McCain saying, “My friends, if you’re worried about health care and housing and jobs, why not join the military?  Stand up and serve your country.  Do something to help yourself and your country.  Be an American.  Get up off your lazy asses and join the army, my friends. The army takes care of all of your needs. And while you’re in the military you can help with foreign affairs by following orders and doing what you’re told to do. Your country will thank you for your service.”

The irony of those who were planning to attack and kill African Americans and then go after Obama is that they have anger and hatred that has built up over the last 8 years as a result of Republican policies and that the person who can most help them crawl out from their positions of inadequacy, hopelessness and frustration is the Democratic candidate for president, Barack Obama. The problem for Obama is that his own name is a barrier to getting some people to think differently. While Obama’s campaign is well organized, his name is a marketing nightmare.  To some people his name screams “guilty by association”.  Some will think that Obama’s name sounds too ethnic.  It sounds foreign.  It screws up the image that people have of someone who holds the White House. The American presidency is the most powerful and influential entity in the world. How can Americans hire someone who has a name that sounds so ethnic for a job that is so American? This is where Americans will hold themselves back. They will let their bias and prejudice cloud their judgment and sense of what is right. In the end, Americans and America will fall from grace if they choose to abandon their sense of what is right. If Americans allow the color of someone’s skin or the sound of someone’s name to influence their decision to do what is right, then they have abandoned what is right and just and will begin to lose self respect.  Shall you fall from grace, America or shall you build a bridge to the future that takes us to a better place?  

The president of the United States should be the top public servant that responds to the people. That is what the president should be. How was G.W. Bush qualified to be president of the United States, other than his father was the 41st president? Where had George W. been tested? What was his foreign policy experience? Isn’t the test of a president someone who can put together a good team of advisors and be willing to listen and be thoughtful in his decisions?  Shouldn’t a president be able to build a consensus with the people he is seeking to lead? The greatest change that Obama represents for America and the world is a change in attitude. Is it possible that most Americans really have no idea what makes America a unique nation? America is nothing if not an attitude. America is a can-do attitude.  What is America about? Has it lost its way in the world?

Barack Obama is a bridge to the 21st century. He is unique in that he is both black and white. He shares both cultures. He is a bridge culture to a better life. His interests line up with the American middle class better than any presidential candidate who has come before him. You gave George W. Bush a chance to be president for 8 years. Why can’t you give Obama a chance to be president for at least 4 years?

Be inspired. Don’t let your imagined fear scare you from doing what is honorable. Do the American thing. Vote for the guy who is really listening to what America is saying. Vote American. Vote Obama.  This must be the place.