So the die hard Obama supporters are at it again. We're trying to stimulate the populous to stimulate the economy. Is anybody listening is the real question.
American citizens wanted a change. We voted to continue to create a more perfect union and it is becoming difficult to articulate what exactly is standing in the way.
It has occurred to me that people don't read history. Maybe most American Republican Senators aren't aware of Herbert Hoover's ineffective, "too little too late" attempts at balancing the budget in the first years of the Great Depression. Does Hawley Smoot Tarriff ring any bells? Well, Hoover was certain that protective tariffs and "buy American" legislation, could stave off a decline in domestic production and sales. This can't be our wrong doing causing a world depression. It must be the Europeans, he seemed to believe. WRONG.
Hoover also didn't believe in government aid to relieve human suffering. If you don't have a job, call a volunteer organization. I guess it didn't occurr to him that many volunteers and do gooders had lost their jobs and couldn't keep working the evening soup kitchen when their own families didn't have dinner on the table. Maybe he wasn't aware that the super rich philanthropists stopped handing money out after their personal assets had been relatively crushed with the stock market crash. When he finally got around to realizing, "golly" the masses need a little help, he wanted to use trickle down economics. This was in the form of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932. It was a loan authority for railroads, banks and municipalities to keep them from collapsing. He did adhere to the belief, to the bitter end that the richest would spend enough to get the economy moving enough to let the lowly middle class and the poor have enough to eat to keep them from revolting.
Well, I think that mindset is revolting. I just can't figure out why it's happening all over again and the only people that seem to be angry we are not passing the stimulus plan before all hell breaks lose are the workers. Everybody loses if we have a depression.
It seems to me, not that it matters, that President Obama doesn't realize how many millions he could mobilize if we had a clear direction. We can get him elected but now we need to overturn the Washington media establishment that makes light of the idealists that elected him. We should all be deeply offended. John McCain should not be trying to block him. Arizona needs this bill as much as Connecticut. We need a campain of bright articulate people that can converge on Washington and have a rally that the media will not discredit.
Middle class people will become poor. The poor willl be desperate. But the rich, the rich will be just fine.
The greatest statement by Kevin Phillips on Bill Moyers Journal was that, and I paraphrase, the taxpayers 700 billion bailout was that socialism is alive and well in the bailout; the only problem is that the rich get the benefits and the taxpayers have to pay when things go wrong. How ironic is that people? The bailout was frightening to me. It shocked me that we could actually vote for anything that Hank Paulson, with a fortune of 700 million dollars amassed on Wall Street. I honestly don't think many of us realize just how different the lives of the super rich really are. Socialism? Hmm We really do have to get are ducks in order when it comes to our priorities and I have a funny feeling that the deepest believers in this movement for change, those of us who heard and felt in Barack possibilities for an engaged citizenship in the United States, are going to hit the streets and start working to make sure change occurs.
How many of us have been checking our email and waiting to hear what we should do next only to realize cooing a meal at the homeless shelter, or getting a fundraising campaign for a new after school program in the neighborhood is what must happen. One thing I do know about economics is that there is a benefit to this kind of engaged citizenship, it is called the personal external benefit. It also helps you sleep well at night. Socialism of the rich does the opposite; as teh bank account grows and the knowledge that it has come at the expense of the health care for the poor, putting the head down on the pillow requires at least one dose of a sleep aid. I guess it should be Ambien CR, or at least investments in that pharmceuical are up fifteen points.....
"Dear Hunter, I want you to join me in Chicago On Election Night..."
DON'T DO THAT BARACK!!!!!!!
I was so certain the campaign had finally uncovered my personal gifts.... Maybe your staff, the staff I have met over the past thirteen months i have been canvassing around the globe (okay four states) on your behalf had voted for ME. They should vote for me. I promise I am an assett, I am also demure, I am an extrovert, but if you need me to be an introvert that is cool too. I can actually be quiet, or tell jokes, but if jokes are inappropriate .......
David Plouff, DON'T DO THAT!!!!!!
I thought, for one fleeting moment, my charm, my wit, my altruistic personality, my compelling life story shared over months, THE FACT MY NAME IS HUNTER! JOE BIDEN SON"S NAME IS BIDEN< GET IT>>>IT"S IN THE CARDS.....it's DESTINY ...like you're candidacy, my trip to the Obama victory tour....
Didn't you see The Colbert Report...Do the assocation, Hunter...Biden's son...Biden, Barack....You need me along with four others to join you........
You can even contact me via email Mr. Plouff, or Mr. Axelrod, feel free to get back to me later tonight,
on mybo or call me......Please.......please......microtarget me.....
I wonder if Toni Morrison believed she would live in a time when an African American man that defined the ultimate "look" for young boys. As my son looks forlornly at his thin straight blonde hair and Slavic looks, he longs for African ancestors.
As anyone with young children and particularly adolescent males can tell you, this Hollween everyone wants to be Barack. The masks are sold out in every Party City and Holoween store and even online. Now, having worked in costumes Off Broadway for several years after college I was able to convince my son that if he really wanted to be Barack Obama for his Holloween dance at school he should, it's an easy sostume. Hmmm he said wanting to be poolite but not knowing how to tell me that I just didn't get it. We were treading around a landmine: or were we?
I said the costume is pretty easy;Barack wears almost a uniform on the campaign trail; white shirt, blue tie, dark pants or kakhis, dress shoes, slightly battered from galavanting cross country. "But, ..." Long silence. "Mom, my hair, my eyes...." "Oh ." I replied. Okay your eyes, well I can't do anything about pale blue eyes, but the blonde hair, you have a point, you'll just look like a little prep dressed for boarding school. We need a wig." "A wig?! Obama shaves his hair so short. I'll just shave my head.""NO." I replied. "our love had to be infused with reason. Okay. I have an idea. We got dressed and went to a wig store I knew was frequented by African American women. Having made my son feel awkward enough I thought I might as well go all the way. I explained the situation,"what do you have in a short man's Afro. My son wants to be Barack Obama for Holloween? The women laughed in a friendly and loving way. "What a good idea child. Forget those silly masks, they don't do him justice." She went on a search. All we could dome up with was a sixties Afro. When we put it on my son mutually we thought, "Obama at Harvard law school.Yes." Now if it hadn't been a sixth grade dance we might have gone with that. A nice brown leather jacket, the Jermaine Jackson look with some books. We've all seen the picture of the law school years. No, sixth graders won't get it. I asked her, what do you think if I cut it? He has a long fro, now we cut it to Obama's length. Awesome idea. Wait....Awkward pause, then she asked.."What are you going to do about his skin?.....Pause.
Now picture this .."My son attends about the most racially integrated public school in America. Who knows, maybe it is. There are children from thirty natoins speaking a multitude of languages. This has to do with both the influence of Yale University graduate housing, New Haven's immigrant population, and the typical urban population mixed into one pot. I speculated what would students who have heard their parents battling the stain and oppression of racism think when a child comes inn with an Afro and his face darkened? Not a good idea. So I thought, "How many times have I see beautiful African American children dressed as Cinderella, or Belle or Ariel? Hundred...that's how many. What do they do? Wear the costume, approximate the hair vila. You don't change the skin tone for a lot of reasons....think about it. So we cut the wig which was a laborious process. When my adorable son put in his new dark hair closely cropped, there was no doubt who he was impersonating....no emulating Perfect. Sure a few kids tried to make fun of him, but really what's there to make fun of with Barack. By the way, my son's ears stick out. It was the first time he was happy at about that.
I recently wrote about Said Hyder Akbar's book "Come Back to Afghanistan," in rereading this nineteen year old's life at the center of the events that led to the re-emergence of Al Queda in Afghanistan, it makes our Middle Eastern foreign policy of the last eight years look like a poorly played game of Risk. You know, when you play with someone with no strategy whatsoever. Mind you, this is a current Yale undergraduate writing from the ground with access to the top "good guys," who would eventually be on Karzai's team, including his father. Akbar recounts precisely ow the US turned to Pakistan and for protection and distribution of funds and military supplies. We used the corrupt ISI under Musharaff to aid visionaries who wanted to rebuild Afghanistan and return Kabul to its cosmopolitan lifestyle. After Sept. 11, 2001, all of the refugees who had been major policy makers, writers and thinkers were hopeful that the United States was ready to help rebuild what the Soviets and then the warlords had destroyed.
My first week canvassing in Keene New Hampshire back in january, I had he privilege of going door to door with Susan Rice and her handsome son. Our boys were about the same age and we thought it would help them from getting too bored. Ms. Rice is one of Obama's top foreign policy experts. I got to hear, first hand her explanation to volunteers that Obama had believed a venture into Iraq was misguided when the culprits of 9/11 were in Afghanistan. We needed to focus on preventing the increasing power vacume that Afghanistan was experiencing. Said Akbar recounts from the Afghani perspective precisely how that is wat occurred. A high school graduate from suburban California had a more valid grasp on world events than our President and the advisors he chose to implement. We can never make up to the Aghan people our aquiescence to Pakistan's corrupt military to distribute aide to their country, but we can begin to listen to the best and the brightest minds in foreign policy, as well as eager Afghan allies who have always been willing to share the events of their coutry with the US government.
The situation is desperate. It has been for years but better late than never.
I have been enrapt on many levels for the past two nights with the memoir, "Come Back To Afghanistan; Trying to Rebuild a Coutry wih My Father, My Brother, My One Eyed Uncle, Bearded Tribesmen, and President Karzai". This memoir is personally moving during this election as we recall that Obama had called for entering Afghanistan and NOT Iraq, and how the boy's tale mirrors somewhat Obama's story of longing for a foreign father. it is the tale of an Afghani teenager who lives in a California subburb loves, U2, and is totally American but perceived as Afghani. I am forced to realize this is a similar story for all Americans in a sense, unless they are native. He beautifully explains the awkward moments his parents have in California as they try to adjust to American life. He then takes us to the Soviet invasion through his parents eyes. His father was the head of the government run Kabul radio when the Soviets take over the city. The family snuck across the Pakistani border in the darkness to escape persecution. He then explains the power vacume that emerged with the Sovivet withdrawal and the end of the Cold War, which opened the door to warlord battles and the rise of the Taliban.
This young man with spectacular filial piety and love of his motherland, oins his father as he is asked by the newly appointed President Karzai to help rebuild the country. He was often answering a cell phone with the New Yok Times, or Washington Post on the line while mayhem reigned outside his bombed out hotel rooom. Amazingly he can make you laugh and feel like the whole tale is a long interview with Jon Stuart. You will laugh at his teenage vantage points, you will cry at US complicity, bungling and ignorance on the ground in Afghanistan. You will also, I believe come away with a sense that this is indeed where the terrorist attacks originated, and indeed they were plotted in a cave, by a group of dirty, bearded, sick but persistent fanatics. If we could STOP and THINK and PLAN using the leading minds and tactitians, not just high tech weapons, we would have rebuilt every school in Afghanistan and made them so happy the Soviets were gone for good and they could go back to the sophisticated, eggalitarian lifestyleee that was Kabul before the war.
The amazing thing about both the author and the story is his age. I turned the bok over and realized e is a senior at Yale University, where I live right now. I am looking for a way to contact him. His father now works for President Karzai. I hope one day to speak with this inspiring young man. If you read the book, you will feel more convinced that Obama was so right about the need to focus aide and attention in this war ravaged country.
Republicans for Obama placed a full page add in USA Today yesterday explaining why the GOP should back Obama. Now I have two special needs children, I am unemployed as a result, and well my family has seen some rocky road in the past few years; but this add brought tears to my eyes. Maybe I am just losing the old bearings, but I think I may have my long term priorities straight, possibly for he first time in my life. If Republicans beyond the intelligentsia are calling for an end to partisanship in order to deal with our national crisis, it appears the nation may be recovering from its gated community mentality. Reacching across lines of thinking is difficult for most human beings, it goes against the fiber of our DNA. Fortunately, humans have a higher intelligence that can be called on when default modes of thinking and behaving are not up to the task of ensuring survival.
Survival as a nation is indeed at stake. I am not forseeing Armagedon, but rather a slow and rather painful death of true democracy. People are deciding that compromise may be in order in this election if their own future as workers, as parents, as students, as free thinking people is at stake. You may not agree with Roe v. Wade but the wasteful deaths in Iraq and civilian bloodbath in Afghanistan has begun to nag seem comparable to "innocent lives lost." Hmm. We are thinking. We are still free to express and change our opinions. David Brooks has let us change sides, no get on the same side of justice and the spirit of democracy.
I hope that I will remain as open to changing my opinions about Republicans when the right candidate presents him or herself in the future. I am proud that my husband switched parties, and is voting for Senator Obama, but I will be equally proud if a candidate from another party convinces me in say 12 years, that they have good ideas too.
How the campaigned has changed! I have been using the tools on this website to call women in Pennsylvania this Sunday. The difference a few weeks have made in the responses to campaign calls is enormous. I just got off the phone with a 50 something year old women from Pennsylvania and was warmed and inspired by her response to the call. She had made her decision to support Barack because of his consistent message of focusing to restore the soundness of the American economy of the middle class. She liked that his message had not been erratic and seemed to be rather prescient about the economic crash. She was amazed that he had forseen spending 10 billion dollars a month in Iraq, with no end in siight, would dammage our national security , not enhance it. She was impressed that regulation he has been advocating since the primary is now occurring by the Republicans as a distster relief instead of a thoughtful plan, the kind Obama would implement.
Pennsylvania women are coming around. they are call after call letting me now that while they felt unsure about Senator Obama six months ago, he has become a familiar face whose calming presence is welcome in these turbulent economic times.
In conclusion, if you want to feel good about the campaign and the difference Obama is already making in making people hope for better times with confidence, just get on the phone. It works, it really does.
My son, adopted from Moscow at age four, mute until he was five years old, has understood the beauty of Barack Obama's desire for consensus since 2004. It is becoming clearer to me why a boy raised in the deprived circumstances of the "Lord of the Flies," type setting in which he spent his formative years would love Obama. He listens. A victim of survival of the fitest in the extreme Misha discovered his nuanced views of justice would not glean him much in the debate floor of extreme poverty. He chose to never even bother to speak. When he needed something, he pointed. If it was unavailable, he tried to disappear, literally. My son stoped growing by shutting down his pituitary gland in what medically is known as "failure to thrive." When I first met him he appeared to be at most 12 months old. He was four years of age. When nobody listens to your point of view unless you punch them or bite them, why bother growing up?
I think that is why the article in today's New York Times explaining Senator Obama's "Commitment to Dialogue," is so important." In recent weeks I hae heard even critics say that they want to see him be tougher in fighting for what he believes in. Well, if what you believe in is consensus, and mutual understanding, it appears that he is fighting quite well. I should say, he would prefer not to fight, if there are elements of societal change we can all agree must take place. Remember during the final debate when he was asked about whether he would overturn Roe v. Wade? He sought to underline where the people of the United States could find agreement. "Nobody is pro-abortion," he reminded Senator McCaine. "What we can agree on is the need to reduce unwanted pregnancies. A President who can approach problems by first finding where all his constituents agree may very well be able to bring the nation together on many levels.
Today's Times article also went on to explain that Obama, "prides himself in trying to see the world through other's eyes." Well, I disagree. I don't think he "prides" himself. I think it is simply in his nature. To always attach "pride," to Barack Obama is to misunderstand his ontological nature. I believe the gift his mother bestowed on him, however niavely, by raising him on a global adventure, is that he naturally sees the world from multiple perspectives. It is simply what he does. It is what is so appealing and possible frustrating about him. It is frustrating however, only when he is eloquently elaborating the arguments of the other side. How we all hate that! Arrgh. Think of life from the perspective of a young black man with two middle class white grandparents, desperately trying to go through adolescents.
Back to my son. Misha is studying the Civil War now. He attends a school that is 50% African American. It greatly disturbs him that his fellow students of color do not "get' that he understands oppression as much as they do. They are allowed to talk about being black, but he is not, they feel. He came home and explained, they don't understand that in Russia, to be an orphan is to be oppressed. Now he didn't say it quite like that but his frustration was clear. He has explained President Lincoln's job was to see the opinions and needs of the South were addressed. Lincoln like Barack was a consensus builder. As President that would be his job as our Chief Executive.
The reason I say that ontologically Barack sees the world through others eyes, is from my experience in watching him negotiate my son's adoration. We campaigned in new Hampshire during the primary when the Senator was still relatively accessible. Misha could not help but interrupt him every time he asked a rhetorical question which begged an internal response. Now that my son has found his voice he finds it hard to remain silent. When it came time to shake hands with supporters, Misha could not contain himself. he jumped into Obama's arms over the security fence. I ducked into the crowd attempting to blend into the new hampshire scenery. Even five women away Obama knew I was Mom. "Don't worry, he's adorable." No admonitions allowed from the guards. He quickly told them it was okay because as a parent, he knew if Malia or Sasha had done that, just how he would feel. It was spontaneous.
My point is that a President, like Lincoln, who is willing to wrestle with opposing points of view before reaching a decision, is more likely to; diffuse dangerous situations, maximize productivity without undo rancor, and move toward a more just and equal land of opportunity. Well, that's what Misha thinks anyhow.
I have several graduate degrees but none in economics, and even I can see a Robbers Barons in action. I have no idea why Senator Obama is favoring any variation on the theme of the Paulson bailout when he knows a more just plan is staring us all in the face. WHERE IS THE CASH IN AMERIA? Every business attorney in America can smell the cash in a lawsuit. he deep pocket theory is not a mystery, we all now of the elderly woman who sued McDonald's for scalding her with hot coffee she was drinking in the car. WHo is left with money in America? The top 10% of the population. (Actually the top 1% could bail us out without suffering substantially, but I wanted to include my own sacrifice and I am not that comfortably well off).
If Congress passed a bill requiring every American in the top 10% income level last year to anti up a one time payment of $20,000-$100,000t , we would cover the bill without incurring further debt to China or any other foreign power. This would help in building the trust of the lower income families while honestly allowing the beneficiaries of a Wall Street bail out to make the necessary life adjustments. The people that created the problem and got rich doing it, need to be the people held accountable. The Gilded Age is over people. Pony Up.
When we are in a war, costing $10 billion a month, it is a little funny to listen to Republicans say anything about the supposedly "big" government of the Democrats. We have a candidate, the only candidate, who was against this economic toilet and the enormous military machine of the Pentagon delivering millions of dollars in bubble wrap all over the middle east. Funny, we wouldn't have to pay off rogue insurgents if we weren't there in the first place.
Even if the war ends up less than a total disaster the cost has been too high.
We have a candidate who also called removing the gas tax which is actually out dated and insufficient for repairing a crumbling infrastructure. If we read history, we know that continuing to pander to only the richest Americans in order to stimulate growth, as played out its course. We will have class riots on our hands. Finding new ways to charge infrastructure user taxes will create construction jobs, the working class needs them, the rich need them and golly I think the oil companies can get rid of a private jet or two without feeling too much pain.
It has been a decade at least since any historical moment has made my heart soar and made me proud to be an American. Maybe I sound a little like Michelle Obama but I am just being honest. This was a campaign between two credentialed public servants, that were also a black and a woman. It is however, quite a Lincolnesque feat that the candidate with no family legacy of political clout prevailed. This was a testament to Barack Obama's ability to galvanize the most complacent citizens,,,hmm....like me. i have made even my children a little wary of my enthusiasm for Barack Obama's candidacy, until last night. Hearing Obama in Minnesoata made me believe in an America that is still possible. Where cynicism doesn't have to be the only form of higher thinking and discussing politics. I am beginning to believe that making a donation to Rosa DeLaura, my State Representative, is an investment not a niave gesture. Now, however, we as Obama supporters must come together to assure his presidency. We must take on the mantle of citizenship that comes with the liberty bestowed us in the constitution. If we are to live in a country where we move toward the goal of liberty and justice for all, governed by and for the people, we must take the responsibility of voting and informing ourselves seriously. It is only by knowing where Obama's responsibilities end and our responsibilities begin that he can fulfill his destiny and we can fulfill ours as Americans.
Our moment as a great nation worthy of respect and dignity, is upon us.
I live near one of the Critical Commerce Corridors. What is that? You may ask. I won't get into dry details right now but, commerce in the continental United States moves primarily over highways. Certainly we have some freight that is still shipped by rail, but even then it must be transported at the end of its rail journey via trucking. Anyone that uses a major interstate highway knows that during the high peak traffic hours, commuters are often competing for highway space with these commerce carriers.
I believe that there are many transportation economists who can come up with excellent models to reduce traffic at peak hours lowering both congestion pollution and highway fatalities due to diverse vehicle speeds and size. The nation has the technology to charge user fees via satellite and modem attached to cars at registration. These fees could be similar to off-peak rail charges. The driver is charged for the actual travel time on specific highways based on miles traveled and hour of the day. This fee would be used to maintain and enhance the nation's critical commerce corridors. The rural driver that is using local roads would support maintenance with a local taxation system paid either at the time of registering the vehicle or from gas.
Last weekend it was memorial day. It is ussually the most heavily trafficked time of year on I-95 in New Haven to new York City. My daughter was invited to a close friends sweet sixteen birthday party at 6:00pmon a route necessitating driving on this heavily used vacation and trucking corridor. From experience I told her we should leave an hour early to make the ten mile drive because vacationers returning home on Monday evening will cause bumper to bumper traffic. Well, gas prices have finally hit a critical high. We sailed the ten miles in a normal 16 or 17 minutes at 55 mph. People have stopped using as much gas because of the price. Now, THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. WE ARE A NATION AT WAR. At $3 a gallon traffic maintained. It looks as though we may actually see changes in behavior due to price increase. Now comes the challenging part for our next President: with gas prices at a record high, how can we convince the American voting public that driving on critical commerce corridors at peak traffic hour should be charged accordingly. We have to implement these calibrated charges before our congestion pollution, loss of time and money in traffic, wear and tear on infrastructure destroys our national transportation of goods and services as well as commuting time. It is up to America to begin to face that sacrifice is part of citizenship.
The money we have spent on a war largely based on access and control over oil supplies should be a national wake-up call. I would rather pay to travel now, than lose my children in a war I could have prevented by driving less and at different times in a smaller car! I lost my father to a war based on the fabrication of the Tonkin fiasco. Let's not fabricate what this war is about any longer.
I was born Mary Ellen Hunter, on May 9, 1963. I am the only one of four sisters not born on an air force base in the United States. We have added family member at a Texas Air Force bas and two sisters were born at the Idaho Air Force Base. We spent time during the Viet Nam War on the Manila air Force Base. On this Memorial Day I would like to remember my natural father who was shot down over Laos in 1967, participating in a nightmare. He was MIA for YEARS. I also want to honor my father Edward W. Sloan III, who married my mother, a young widow of the war, and adopted her four young children. Today I see how an historian, so versed in the disasterous implications of war,armed with degrees form Yale and a Phi Beta Kapa Phd. from Harvard, after transferring from Harvard business school, had the greatness of heart to not simply marry my beautiful, and exceptional mother; but to marry all of us.
I am a Sloan now, but I carry the name Hunter, not just to remember my particular father, Russell Palmer Hunter, but also to memorialize the loss, in my own silent way, while still honoring the man that made the gracious offer to raise us as his own.
Recently at a New Haven for Obama meeting, we were discussing some of the activities we might be planning for the summer. I am going to be working with our Parks and Rec Dept. and our Mayor to clean up designated high traffic picnic areas and scenic places in the city areas as a citizen for Obama. it was recommended that I contact Obama Works. I discovered just a little more aboout citizenship in America that gives one hope. A group of Missourri citizens working with Obama Works are building a house with Habitat for Humanity this June. Another group is planting flowers for Obama in their community. This is exciting. i am moving away from issues of war and the middle east as a kind of summer vacation. Instead I want to build a home, clean a park, have a tag sale for Obama. The sweet smell of summer and citizenship.
It is so easy to get bogged down in the negative aspects of politics. What about when a politician so motivates you to look for the best in yourself and to live up to the responsibilities that were inherent in democracy. The democratic ideal is to participate and sacrifice for the country you believe in. It has been decades since I have seen this kind of selfless contributing to communities in the belief that Barack Obama stands not simply for his own agenda, but for an America that we can all participate in creating.
The pictures from Oregon gave me chills. Whatever happens in the coming months this morning every American should feel proud of how far we have come in our society. Yes, we have a long way to go in healing racial, economic, and gender inequality, but we must at times pause and breathe in the air of freedom. As over 70,000 people gathered to listen to the first black American democratic nominee for President in Oregon I had "butterflies in my tummy," as my Shrinking Violet doll used to repeat when I pulled the string as a toddler in the sixties.
As a theologian, and a one time Chaplain at an Episcopal elementary school in New Haven Ct. I gave many a homily on Ruby Bridges, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglas. Today with a child in a very racially integrated public elementary school in New Haven Ct. I feel the power of Barack Obama's energy every morning as I drop my son off to school. Every third car has an Obama sticker and many of us have campaigned for our political hero.
Last night on Bill Moyers I was reminded of just what a race this has been. Hillary is intelligent. SHe knows policy. She is a hard fighter. I am a woman. I am a mother. I am caucasian. What is it that Barack Obama has that to me is so captivating?
Clearly, 70,000 people in Oregon fell at least a little of this energy. It is an energy that is directed outward. I will never be a brilliant legal scholar, or political policy expert, but I am a citizen with rights that come with responsibilities. Until Barack Obama came onto the political landscape it did not occur to me since childhood to participate in the political world of my community, state and country. In the last year I have met my state representative, I have been to three state primaries and voted in my first primary election. I know my Congressional district chairperson. I have canvassed with my Mayor and met our Superintendant of Schools in New Haven. I have been to Barber Shops and super markets talking about our country's war. I have talked to people who fought in Viet Nam with my father. I have had "Dreams of My Father," a veteran for whom I am named. I have become a responsible engaged citizen. I even clean up other people's garbage because I don't want to disappoint Barack Obama. My child knows all three branches of government and how a bill is passed because I want him to be engaged. my daughter is majoring in political science and participating in her first election. WOW. All because of one man.
My daughter Portia and I stood in Keene new Hampshire watching Senator Obama enter the gym. A woman behind me quietly but powerfully said to me, "He has the light, don't you see it." I think she was right. This light shines on all Americans and allows us to see the very best in ourselves, not just Barack. I'm looking good.
Today in the 3rd Congressional District of Connecticut a group of enthusiastic Obama supporters began to look at the road ahead. If indeed Senator Obama becomes the Democratic nominee for President of the United States what will we be doing to assure a President named Obama.
At this point those of us in the grass roots arena can do a lot; begin participating in Voter registration drives with the Connecticut for Obama team. If you are reading this post you must be receiving information from Conecticut for Obama in your email. If you are not join CT for Obama on line. If you know people that are on line users who do not use Obama on line, have a conversation about it. Bring them with you to a registration drive or at least make certain they are registered.
Next, we have to be prepared to embrace with open arms Hillary supporters who are grieving. Give them time to accept that Obama will be our candidate, if that is what happens. Then invite them to an activity for Obama.
The next piece of the puzzle gets tricky. So many of us have a deep passion to participate in this election. It became clear to me tonight that each and every one of us have gifts that can be brought o this grass roots table. We have a responsibility to show our commitment to Obama in cleaning our streets, serving at soup kitchens and doing fundraisers in party clothes. The important thing seems to be DOING IT with a grass roots passion and inviting people to join you. We will be gathering once a month to coordinate activities and write calendar and post it on googledocs. I know I will try and invite people through email and groups in Connecticut to my events. What is important is that you know why it represents Obama and that you show people by wearing tshirts, buttons and posters.
Finally, who will we be after the election? Let's keep the conversation going!!!
I have never been so happy in my adult life. It has nothing to do with me or my accomplishments. It has to do, for the first time in oh so many years, with the pride I feel in living in America. I opened the paper today to see Barack Obama's beautiful smile lighting up the New York Times. This man, only five months ago smiled at the podium in Keene New Hampshire at my daughter and me (and others in the huge crowd) as we yelled "we love you Barack, he smiled that uplifting smile and returned our admiration, "I love you back." We jumped up and down like teenagers. My daughter is a teenager but I sure felt like one. Later in the evening he hugged my son who managed to practically ump on op of him with excitement. What a nice way to end a day spent trudging through the winter weather in zero degrees canvassing for our next President.
There have been many days of disappointment in my quest for the White House, but what has amazed me is the singular vision of so many of the citizens banded together in this Obama nation. We have always had hope, not necessarily in ourselves, but in the movement. When I have been down, friends have ecouraged me, when my daughter has been down fellow her cousins encouraged her, when my son has lost faith, I have encouraged him. Our mayor has canvassed with us. Our State Representative has canvasse with us. Now we are on our way to he White House. I say "we" because that is how it feels. I know that he couldn't have done it without all of us. He helped us to sustain our belief in this nation. He helped me to ekindle a faith in myself. There is no obstacle that cannot be confronted when people work together for change in decent and respectful ways. "We worship an awesome God.." Yes, in America, our freedom allows us o come together as one regardless of race or creed and fight for what is just.
I have nothing profound and deep to say other than how grateful I am to have campaigned with all my heart for Senator Obama. I have nothing to gain in this election other than a restoration in my belief in life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is indeed still part of our great country. Happy Mother's Day.
