On Saturday March 31 my wife Jen, and I attended our first event for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. It was a gathering of 20 people at the office of two supporters who volunteered to host the event. We gathered to watch Obama answer questions in a town-hall type setting in Iowa. The event was webcasted live over the internet. Despite a few lags and a few minor technical delays it was wonderful to hear Obama answer people’s questions and outline his priorities for national government. Even more importantly however, this event provided us with the opportunity to meet and speak to other early Obama supporters. We found them to be very interesting and genuinely concerned people. Many of them were obviously quite wealthy professionals – but none of them put on airs. We found them to be well educated but modest and down to earth. They represented some of the best examples of wealthy liberals – those who are aware of their place of privilege and desire to give back to their communities and improve the lot of those who do not share the same privileges as themselves. For most of those in attendance, this campaign was the first to really get them motivated and involved in politics especially at such an early stage. One of the hosts described himself as a “life-long libertarian” whose faith in politics and government had moved from the cynical to the nihilistic under the Bush administration. Obama he said was the first person who spoke like himself, who seemed to understand how things work and how interconnected the world truly is. He went on say that he recently registered as a Democrat for the first time in order to vote for Obama in the primaries.
Barack Obama is truly a candidate who is inspiring many people and that explains his success in raising money and his broad support so early on in this election cycle. I think that his ability to raise that kind of excitement and enthusiasm should speak loudly to Democrats when they decide to vote in the primaries. For truly I believe that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination, he will be our next president. If Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, I am sure that we will have yet another Republican in the White House. She is just too divisive and polarizing. After 6 years of an extremely polarizing administration, we need a real uniter not another divider.
Please examine Barack Obama and his plans for America (and the world’s) future. He is a great man who would make an excellent President.
