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Everyone has their own reasons for supporting Obama, but here are mine. I was skeptical about him for a long time but I came around a few months ago. He appeals to my senses of idealism, cynicism, desperation and anger all at the same time. As a millennial, I've grown up watching hideous, bitter partisan deadlock, rampant during the Clinton years and now so much worse under Bush. But somehow I still picked up ideals and taught myself to try hard even when others tell me it's pointless.
As I read arguments against him from destructive cynics cracking snide phrases like "hopeful hopiness", I'm reminded of all the times I tried to hand someone a flier and they refused it or sneered at me. Yeah, fuck you, too, dude. But I didn't give up, I grew thicker skin, and now for the first time it looks like there's a chance help might be on the way. Tuesday is the first election I'm actually looking forward to voting in. I wasn't expecting this. As late as three months ago, I thought I'd merely be casting a vote against somebody.
While I think he's right on most of his positions, the real reason I support him is his ability to get other people to support his positions. He has uncanny charisma and this amazing ability to communicate with all different types of people at once. This charisma provides the ability to get things done and if not transcend, at least bypass partisanship. I've never said this about any Democratic politician, but if and when the right wing rips into Obama, it'll be the right wing that suffers. The way he'll govern --- what with his appeal to disillusioned Republicans, his way of approaching problems, his openness and honesty --- will make him a great shield for a Democratic majority in Congress. He'll have one of the strongest mandates for change in history. Most importantly, he'll hold onto that mandate by getting people to stay actively engaged in politics, meaning that attacking him will be akin to attacking the American people.
Consider his statement on health care last night, for instance (emphasis added).
But the last point I want to make has to do with how we're going to actually get this plan done. You know, Ted Kennedy said that he is confident that we will get universal health care with me as president, and he's been working on it longer than I think about than anybody.
But he's gone through 12 of these plans, and each time they have failed. And part of the reason, I think, that they have failed is we have not been able to bring Democrats, Republicans together to get it done.
(APPLAUSE)
That's what I did in Illinois, to provide insurance for people who did not have it. That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are.
(APPLAUSE)
Because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process. And overcoming the special interests and the lobbyists who -- Senator Clinton is right. They will resist anything that we try to do. My plan, her plan, they will try to resist.
And the antidote to that is making sure that the American people understand what is at stake. I am absolutely committed to making sure that anybody in America who needs health care is going to get it.
That's the key to every issue, not just health care --- ushering citizens into the process. This can only be done by making it a point to increase transparency and engage everyday people. He wants to make more activists. I can't think of a better recruiter. I can't even imagine a better recruiter.
And it's already started. Young people, so often disparaged and dismissed as apathetic, have become a force this primary season, much to the chagrin of grumpy haters. While trends indicate it's likely that more of us would be voting this cycle regardless, Obama's turned a trend into a tidal wave. He's solidifying generational Democratic gains; in South Carolina, over 74,000 young voters (18-29) participated in the Dem primary vs. only 44,000 in the Republican one. If that was Massachusetts, I'd shrug, but no, that's South Carolina!
Representative Barbara Lee summed up the significance in her endorsement.
I have endorsed Senator Barack Obama, because I know that bringing about the positive change we need in this young century demands activism and energy from America's young people. Senator Obama has built a movement by exciting young people and harnessing their political power like no other presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy. He has proven that if you reach out to young people and speak to their issues, they will vote.
It's not even just that we'll vote, it's that we'll stay in the democratic process. If we have people in power we can listen to without assuming they're lying bastards, we'll be more willing to participate. If a generation inspired by JFK created the social movements that stopped the war, advanced civil rights, and forever redefined gender roles, I bet a generation inspired by Obama could stop the war, fight global warming, sew politics back together, and then turn around and be ready to repair all those pipes that are about to burst. Judging by the way things are going, you have to figure we'll face everything but an all-out alien invasion, probably. If Barack Obama can win this election, it proves that it's possible that entrenched interests don't always win. David CAN beat Goliath. Elections AREN'T fixed. Trying ISN'T stupid.
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Tom Hayden:
That leaves Barack Obama. I have been devastated by too many tragedies and betrayals over the past forty years to ever again deposit so much hope in any single individual, no matter how charismatic or brilliant. But today I see across the generational divide the spirit, excitement, energy and creativity of a new generation bidding to displace the old ways. Obama's moment is their moment, and I pray that they succeed without the sufferings and betrayals my generation went through. There really is no comparison between the Obama generation and those who would come to power with Hillary Clinton, and I suspect she knows it. The people she would take into her administration may have been reformers and idealists in their youth, but they seem to seek now a return to their establishment positions of power. They are the sorts of people young Hillary Clinton herself would have scorned at Wellesley. If history is any guide, the new "best and brightest" of the Obama generation will unleash a new cycle of activism, reform and fresh thinking before they follow pragmatism to its dead end.
Ted Kennedy:
There was another time, when another young candidate was running for President and challenging America to cross a New Frontier. He faced public criticism from the preceding Democratic President, who was widely respected in the party. Harry Truman said we needed "someone with greater experience"—and added: "May I urge you to be patient." And John Kennedy replied: "The world is changing. The old ways will not do...It is time for a new generation of leadership."
So it is with Barack Obama. He has lit a spark of hope amid the fierce urgency of now.
I believe that a wave of change is moving across America. If we do not turn aside, if we dare to set our course for the shores of hope, we together will go beyond the divisions of the past and find our place to build the America of the future.
Barack Obama:
It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work.
It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: "E pluribus unum," out of many, one.
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.
Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.
There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.
The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too.
We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.
We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states.
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.
We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?
That was from his 2004 speech, the year we chose cynicism. Let this be the election we choose hope.