In November I sent email to a long list of progressive friends and relatives saying that I am supporting Obama. Last night I sent the followup email. I got some good responses, so I figured I post it here.
Why Barack Obama is my choice for president
As you may know from my earlier email I have been supporting Barack Obama for president since November. Now that the Democratic nomination is down to 2 candidates and with Super Tuesday and the Washington State caucus fast approaching, I want to reiterate my strong support for Obama, encourage you to make a contribution if you can, and provide some information that I hope will answer any questions you may have.
I know some of you are supporting Hillary Clinton and I respect that. I think the debate Thursday night clearly demonstrated that both of our Democratic candidates are intelligent, respectful of each other and share the same policy goals. And clearly both are head and shoulders above any candidate the Republicans have to offer. I will definitely support whichever is our nominee in November.
In my opinion, though, Barack Obama is our better choice. He has the character and judgment we need as shown by his range of service from community activist to U.S. senator and by his clear public statement before the war against going to war in Iraq. Combined with his ability to inspire people to achieve together more than appears possible, Barack Obama is exactly the leader we need at this juncture in history.
Obama is building the movement. He attracts thousands and sometimes tens of thousands at rallies. He has many more donors than any other candidate. He has gained a range of prominent endorsements from Ted Kennedy to Janet Napolitano (Gov, AZ) to Kathleen Sebelius (Gov, KS) to a clean sweep of all major California newspapers (note 1) to MoveOn.org. Even three members of the Grateful Dead (who are strong environmentalists) are doing a GOTV concert for Obama in SF on Monday. Why is this happening? It’s because Obama understands and the people who endorse him understand that when his ability to inspire is combined with his intelligence, grasp of the issues and judgment, we, yes we, can move mountains. We are the progressive movement. Obama hears us and will lead us, but will also rely on us to keep pushing our representatives in Congress to fulfill our agenda. That is how we will change what happens in Washington.
Some of you may fear that America won’t elect an African-American. Or a woman. Or Hillary Clinton because of whatever. But fear is what the right-wing machine has been feeding us for years and look where it’s gotten us. So with both of our candidates, I say, throw fear out the window. We progressives continue to build our strength. In 2004 Howard Dean showed us the way. Yes, we were disappointed, but John Kerry picked up the mantel of the movement and drove it forward. Again, we were disappointed, but we gathered our strength and scored a big victory in 2006. Since then, yes, our Democrats haven’t done as much as we wanted, but it’s progress. Now our even greater strength is gathering. We’ve had excellent candidates for President, compared to their motley crew. Now is the time for courage to break into a new era of progressive change.
So please check out the links below for more information on Obama and videos of some of his speeches. If you haven’t yet, you have to listen to one of these speeches.
We are at a turning point in history. If we seize this day, history will look back and say that this was the time and we were the people that changed the course of history...for the better.
Thanks! Go Dems!
Notes:
1 – California newspapers for Obama: http://www.dailykos.com/...
2 - kid oakland, formerly a front page writer on DailyKos, has written some very good pieces on that site about what Obama has done, who are some of the top members of his team and why he is supporting Obama. They cover Tech, Health care, Foreign policy and more. Here’s the latest which has links to the others: http://www.dailykos.com/...
3 – SC Victory speech: (watch from 8 minutes) http://youtube.com/...
4 – NH speech (watch from 8 minutes) http://youtube.com/...
5 – diary by JustAngry on DailyKos.com with videos of 5 great Obama speeches http://www.dailykos.com/...
6 – Washington State caucus Feb 9th. Caucus finder: http://www.wa-democrats.org/...