I believe

I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington. . . I'm asking you to believe in yours. * * * * * I reject the notion that the American moment has passed. I dismiss the cynics who say that this new century cannot be another when, in the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. * * * * *

We are the people we've been waiting for. We are the change we seek.. . . We are the hope for the future, the answer to the cynics who tell us that our house must stand divided, that we cannot come together, that we are not the ones who can make this world the way it should be.
-Barack Obama, Feb 5 2008

Yes, yes, a thousand times YES. It is so refreshing to be rooting for someone rather than just against the greater of two evils.

Many of my female friends are incensed that I'm not supporting Hillary, but voting for a woman simply because she's female is just as bad as voting for a man simply because he's male. I don't like Hillary Clinton. I don't like her policies, I don't like her double-speak, and I don't trust her to bring real change to our ailing government. She is not my candidate. Barack Obama is, and he has been ever since he gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

I've been mulling over how best to articulate what it is about Obama that I find so inspiring, but ultimately I've decided simply to quote the words of others who have expressed my feelings perfectly.

From Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Making Light:

I’m for Obama knowing perfectly well that, as Bill Clinton suggested, it’s a “roll of the dice”. A roll of the dice for Democrats, for progressives, for those of us who’ve fought so hard against the right-wing frames that Obama sometimes (sometimes craftily, sometimes naively) deploys. Because I think a Hillary Clinton candidacy will be another game of inches, yielding—at best—another four or eight years of knifework in the dark. Because I think an Obama candidacy might actually shake up the whole gameboard, energize good people, create room and space for real change.

Because he seems to know something extraordinarily important, something so frequently missing from progressive politics in this country, in this time: how to hearten people.  Because when I watch him speak, I see fearful people becoming brave.

That’s not enough.  But it’s something.  It’s a real something.  It’s a start.

From Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings:

. . . people often wonder whether Obama's call for a new kind of politics is just empty words. Here again, I think he has a real record to point to. He has consistently worked for ethics reform. In Illinois, where he helped pass what the WaPo called "the most ambitious campaign reform in nearly 25 years, making Illinois one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure." In the US Senate, he was the Democrats' point man on ethics, and was deeply involved in the ethics legislation passed this year. He didn't get all he wanted -- for instance, he and Russ Feingold couldn't get a bill establishing an Office of Public Integrity to deal with Congressional scandals. But he accomplished a lot, and wants to accomplish more.

Moreover, he is very interested in open government. The searchable database of government grant and contract recipients that I mentioned above is part of that. But Obama's proposals (pdf) go further.

And finally, from Wil Wheaton of WWdN: In Exile:

We've been afraid for too long, and it's cost us dearly. Karl Rove and George Bush and Dick Cheney will have many disastrous legacies, but one of the most despicable and enduring will be how they used fear to deeply and deliberately divide our country.

It's going to be a huge challenge for our next president to heal this nation, and end the Culture of Fear that's been created by the Bush Administration. I believe that Barack Obama is the best candidate to do that, and I was proud to vote for him today.

C'mon California... why aren't you on the Obama bandwagon yet?

 

Comments

[Dave2]

Have you read his book... "The Audacity of Hope?" His vision for this country is truly inspiring, and is what solidified my vote.

[Keith]

Because he's inexperienced. Because his record shows he merely voted "present" on a bunch of important issues during his (short) tenure in Congress. Because he belongs to a church that only last month honored hatemonger Louis Farrakhan with a lifetime achievement award.

Don't get me wrong, I still voted for him. But my primary reason for doing so was because I feel Hillary is so divisive that were McCain to get the Republican nomination, people wouldn't just vote for McCain, they'd vote against Clinton, and I'd much rather see Obama in the White House than McCain.

[Tag]

Thanks for posting this!

Those of us who have been working the grassroots Obama campaign for the last year were kind of bummed that we didn't win California but after talking with more of my fellow phone bankers and so forth we should be proud of what we did. Hillary literally owned this state three months ago. The gap between Obama and Hilary has shrunk to virtually nothing; even in a strong Hillary state such as what California once was.

Finally, Obama has much deeper financial resources to close the final stretch to nomination. This is because his is a MOVEMENT and 99% of his money has come from little people like myself. Hillary has tapped out most of her resources already and will be dependent upon keeping momentum via debates. Which incidently, I think works in Obama's favor as well. It seems the more he gets out in public to speak, the more support he brings in.

What an AMAZING race!!!

Thanks again for your post. :-)