"Obama, Obama, Obama"
"But is he ready to lead?"
When you are faced with overwhelming force and enthusiasm, I can see why you might choose ridicule. It's hard to get out there and campaign (work) five days a week and really it's easier to sit back on the side with an attractive woman (not that I find Cindy particularly attractive) on your arm and crack jokes. And so we have been forced to listen to a full week of smarmy, mean-spirited, sh*ttiness from the McCain campaign run ad nauseum on cable news. The more ridiculous the charge the more it gets amplified, like the worst highschool gossip or playground name calling: "Did you hear what John said about Barack now?"
And these attacks are attacks on some of you and me too. This chorus of cynics still doesn't believe that Democrats have anything to offer to our political discourse, or that we are deserving of a fair hearing on the merits. They don't believe that young people will vote or that we even care. Even those of us who are on the verge of becoming parents and starting families of our own. A "Republican strategist" on a cable news show last week said, "young people don't vote, we know this." To me the most Rovian goal of this latest round of attacks it to cynically tamp down enthusiasm for Senator Obama's campaign, by subjecting those to whom he brings hope to ridicule and shame.
Some here and elsewhere are afraid of a return of the weak-spined Democratic candidates of the past. But Obama is no John Kerry and his staff have shown a willingness to push back aggressively and call a cynic a cynic, and a liar a liar. They are not ignoring the attacks, and neither should we.
So I am not afraid. Because, as Barack has said on many occasions, fear is a poor counsel. And I will not be goaded into attacking back with anything but the truth about the failed policies of the past seven years. Because to do anything but that is to lose a little bit of the hope that the American people are ready for something different. To do that is to become a cynic and lose by winning, because you can't create a governing coalition if all you spend your days doing is tearing the other side down.
To those who want the Obama campaign to attack back personally and do so fiercely I say this: know hope. And never forget it. Because when hope is lost, there is nothing more to lose. John McCain lost hope sometime in the last several months, and now he just looks ridiculous.
So how should we respond? Forcefully and with hope. When they ask you if he's ready to lead, respond yes. When they ask you if all he has is celebrity, respond with substance. When they ask you why you support him, respond proudly with hope and enthusiasm and know that it is nothing to be ashamed of ever.
Know hope.