I live in Las Vegas, Nv., and Pres Obama held a rally for Harry Reid tonight. I had to rush from work to be there in time and, with the road closures and traffic, it wasn't easy; but it sure was worth it.
Yes, he's every bit as good looking in person as he is on television. He was just as funny, animated, persuasive and commanding as on television but we also got to see Harry Reid sitting behind him. Harry had a nice video piece about his background and gave a nice, though soft spoken, speech which expanded on the video and hit his legislative accomplishments. Did you know that Harry Reid's life was repeatedly threatened by the mobsters who once ruled Vegas? It's true. He had to remotely start his car to see if it would blow up. He grew up very poor and his father had once gone to jail (he didn't say why but implied it was a result of being poor). Harry's theme seemed to be that he never gives up fighting and Obama spoke about Harry's ability to take a punch during his physical fighting days.
Pres Obama reminded us that it was the GOPers that drove the car into a ditch. He and Harry have been pushing that car back out, getting their feet all muddy and hands all sore, and have been having some success. But the GOP now want us to give them back the keys so they can try again. Pres Obama said "No. I won't give them back and neither will Harry."
Whatever their faults have been, these 2 are our best hopes for taking back the country we lost in 1980. Obama was inexperienced when he took office, we all knew that, and that hurt when he let Baucus carry on the HCR Hearings too long. But Pres Obama is a fast learner and isn't likely to make that same mistake again. Further, the 2008 election didn't clearly indicate how Progressive our country is. Obama's win could have been a mere statement of non-support for McLame because he was too old and his running-mate, the beauty contestant, seemed too big a twit to put next in line for McLame's job. 2010 will be much more telling about how strongly the center wants Dem's to lead and Pres Obama has already responded with greater fire.
Obama praised Reid for bringing thousands of clean energy jobs to Nevada and for backing tax cuts that helped about 1 million Nevadans.
I was a recipient of those tax cuts and from Obama's home purchase refund. Neither were of "ant sized" proportion to me.
He criticized Reid's Republican opponent Sharron Angle, saying her views are "more extreme" than GOP lawmakers now in Congress who he said want to deregulate industry and continue giving tax breaks to the rich, policies that Obama said led to economic disaster and growing deficits.
"This is a choice between the policies that led us into the mess, or the policies that are leading us out of the mess," Obama said. "This is the choice between falling backwards and moving forward.
"Harry Reid wants to move forward," he added, gesturing to Reid who shared a ballroom stage with the president. "I think most people in Nevada want to move forward. America doesn't go backward. We move forward."
And that's the crux of it across our nation. A vote for the GOP, or one not made for the Dem candidate, is a vote to go backward. It's a vote to give back the keys to those drunken fools who crashed the car. Mark Knopfler did a song called Don't Crash The Ambulance, on his Shangri-La CD, that Obama's metaphore remeinded me of. If they retake the wheel you can bet the Ambulance will wind back up in the ditch...and it might not be repairable again.
I'm not completely happy with Harry but I'm gong to volunteer time to get him re-elected. His opponent is such a putz that I doubt he's in trouble, anyway, but we can't take this election for granted. Each election since 2000 has seemed very important and this one's no different. In fact, it's possibly the most important because time has run out. If we don't get the Manhattan Project Energy Bill Pres Obama spoke of in his Oval Office speech then we, as a species, are probably done. This election will decide that bill's fate.
Let's make it "One for the angels."