We all know the power of the family e-mail forward, whether it's a viral cut and paste or a news link. With that in mind, now's the time to e-mail your friends and family in personal terms about why you support Barack Obama for president...here's my e-mail letter...I encourage you to write your own and get your own words out there...
Family and Friends,
I know I don't normally e-mail everyone all that much. I hope you're all well and I look forward to seeing many of you at either Thanksgiving, Christmas, or if not, hopefully sometime soon.
I know for many of you, political e-mails aren't your thing, and if they aren't, feel free to delete this now, no harm done. But I also know many of you are tuned into what promises to be one of the most important elections of your or my lifetime, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you, my family, as we all head to the polls in less than four weeks.
As we approach election day, we're hearing a lot about who's ready to lead America, and who isn't. About who has the judgment to make the tough calls, and who lacks it. About who has the character to be President, and who doesn't. Let's be clear --- there is one candidate in this race who has these qualities, and one who clearly does not. Barack Obama has the qualities to be our next President. John McCain does not.
John McCain is ready for one thing and one thing only --- to try to smear his way into the chance to give us four more years of the same policies of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove.
John McCain wants this election to be about Bill Ayers, a tangential figure to Barack Obama who committed his crimes when Obama was barely old enough to ride a bike. Because that's apparently fair game, while John McCain's own role in gaming the system for Charles Keating is apparently old news. Barack Obama has denounced the actions of Ayers --- while John McCain now steadfastly refuses to admit he did anything wrong in being one of the Keating Five, setting the stage for today's economic tough times by letting big Wall Street fat cats run wild. We've seen what happens when Presidents refuse to admit mistakes, and I promise you, John McCain isn't interested in admitting his.
John McCain wants this election to be about Jeremiah Wright, while McCain himself buddies up with right-wing preachers he himself called "agents of intolerance" eight years ago. Men who blame September 11th not on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, but rather on feminists and gay men and women. He says Obama should have spoken up in church during Wright's sermons, many of which Obama was never even present during. Maybe John McCain should have spoken up when he attended an event honoring a woman who shot and wounded a doctor who performed a legal abortion. Maybe John McCain should have said something as he sat next to this woman who shot a man --- a veteran, mind you --- for committing no crime.
John McCain wants this election to be about Michelle Obama, and questioning the patriotism of her and her husband. And to do this, he's hired the same people who dragged his own family through the mud during his presidential campaign in the 2000 primaries. Somewhere along the way, the "Straight Talk Express" has lost a wheel, because by this point, John McCain's slogan may be "Country First", but we've seen honor slide farther and farther down that list.
John McCain wants this election to be about anything except you. He wants to distract you because it's the only card he has left. He doesn't have genuine ideas, so he relies on "game changing" gimmicks. John McCain says these are the "issues" we should use to decide this race. If that's true, then why did he neglect bringing them up with Obama in either presidential debate? Why couldn't he look Barack Obama in the eye and repeat the same attacks he and Sarah Palin use day in and day out on the trail? We know why. Because we all know this kind of guy --- the guy who will spout un-truths behind your back but doesn't have the guts to say it to your face. That's John McCain, my friends. As Barack said the other day, John McCain's out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time.
I implore you --- ask yourself --- how will talking about someone Barack Obama barely knows help your 401k or your college loan bills? How will running ads with the sermons of a man Barack Obama has already denounced lower gas prices and get us energy independent? How will questioning the patriotism of a strong woman and a good mother do anything to ease rising prices and falling wages? They won't. You know it, I know it, and John McCain knows it too. His stubborn and wrongheaded embrace of George Bush's policies has now met its match in his opportunistic and desperate embrace of George Bush's politics.
It genuinely pains me to write these things about John McCain, but they need to be said. As many of you know, I've grown up in love with politics, and with a belief that there are decent people out there who have the courage and convictions to do the right thing. One of the people who helped form that belief in me was John McCain, during his presidential run eight years ago. But the John McCain of 2000 is not the same man I see today. He is a shadow of that man --- a fragment without the independence, without the "maverick" status, and yes, without the character. The John McCain of 2000 gave me, at 16, a love for and a faith in politics. The John McCain of today is doing everything he can to destroy that faith.
There's only one candidate in this race with a real plan to invest in the middle class and give 95% of working families a tax cut, and that's Barack Obama. There's only one candidate in this race with a plan to end our involvement in Iraq and restore stability to the region through diplomacy, and that's Barack Obama. There's only one candidate in this race who chose a running mate for reasons of capability, not political posturing, and that's Barack Obama. There's only one candidate in this race with the character to actually address the issues that affect your lives, and yes, that's Barack Obama.
There's a reason that young people are registering and engaging in the electoral process in numbers never imagined --- and it's because we know that we can be a part of change we can believe in. There's a reason that turnout through the Democratic primaries was at an all time --- and it's because of the audacity of hope entering our politics once again. There's a reason that an African-American presidential candidate is polling ahead in the seat of the Old Confederacy --- and it's because Americans are ready to transcend race and quiet the rough and choppy waters of division.
And there's a reason, on November fourth, you should vote --- that you should participate. Maybe that reason is your friend whose job is being sent overseas, or your health care premiums that seem to go up and up. Maybe it's bringing our operations in Iraq to a responsible close so we can double down to go after the terrorists who actually attacked us, or maybe it's wondering what kind of school your child is going to grow up in. There are many reasons you may be basing your vote on --- but I promise you that basing it on mindless attacks and sensationalized rumor mongering will only bring us all more of the same from the last eight years.
In 2004, my father, mother and I sat down to watch the Democratic National Convention. We saw a skinny guy with a funny name give a speech that set the arena on fire. He spoke about ending the partisan tenor of our politics and about how even when we disagree, we can all stand together as one America. This was not a man who played the politics of fear like a fiddle. This was not a man who presumed to say that he, and ONLY he "put his country first." This was a man with a positive vision for a brighter America --- because it was the promise of America that had given him every opportunity he'd had. And when Barack Obama finished speaking on that night in the summer of 2004, my father said quietly, "That young man is going to be president one day." Dad's not around anymore to cast a ballot this year, and I don't presume to know with certainty how he would vote. But if we keep our eye on the ball and pay attention to the real issues in this campaign, then I believe that this is the year that yes, we can make Dad's declaration a reality.
With Love,
William