Organizing for America

Spare Change for Change

A de Tocqueville American in Paris

"Where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words:
Yes we can! "

 -- Borrowed from a fellow supporter of Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic Party nomination and president in 2008.

Every time I read an article about Barack Obama, or listen to him speak, or listen to others talk about him, I find new reasons to support him, or a renewal and strengthening of my original reasons for listening to him and chosing to support him. 

I wanted a third term of the Bill Clinton presidency (more and more as the 2000 election wore on), and I would have like to be able to place my support behind Hillary for president as much as I did for Hillary for Senator from New York, but times have changed, and they have presented us with a candidate who seem as fresh and adapted for those times as Bill was in 1991. Living here near Paris, I listen to what the French are saying, all the way to their president when he was asked what the United States could do for Europe, and he said, "Be liked more."

Be liked more. The French are fascinated by us, like us and believe in America with as much hope and conviction as the most patriotic among us. They believe, like so many of us, that we have allowed private interests and a supersized misunderstanding of our place in a changing world overtake our government, leading us away from what is best in the United States of America, and they hope fervently -- and believe almost equally strongly -- that we will come to our senses and restore our country to a role of true leadership and become a real partner in creating our evolving global community. They would like to like our government as much as they like us.

(Having gone to see "Sicko", they also pity us something terribe for our shocking heath care situation and hope we will borrow a few of their practices for our benefit.)

They believe Bill Clinton was a fine president and ask why we have term limits. They understand, perhaps better than we do, that power equals money equals perversion of the democratic process and accept the best reasons for limiting the number of terms a president may serve, and then they ask about Hillary, but they are fascinated by Barack Obama. They see his face and call it a face that breathes intelligence and elegance. They listen and hear a man who can think and talk on his feet to us in complete, articulate sentences. They see a man who is black and who is white, who has lived in and outside the United States, who has proven the merit of his mind and character -- and can crack a joke of sharpened wit with the greatest of ease and enjoy the laughter.

I take Hillary Clinton to task for ditching her dreams and dissing Obama for working to realize those very same ones they once shared, and I sometimes wonder if she isn't frustrated with herself for not having been able to do that. I have wondered if Bill doesn't really wish he could go join the Obama campaign right now.

I listen to John Edwards talk about "the underdog" for whom he is working in his campaign, but I don't think Americans earning les than $50,000 a year want to be addressed as "underdogs". I don't.

I think they both have merit, but I believe that Barack Obama has the message with the most amplitude, resonance and promise for the America we are today and the Americans we have become, and for where many of us would like to take our country. I believe that his is a message of respect for all Americans and the country we can make working together. His is a politics of post-anger which all of us can get behind, if we wish.

Barack Obama is committed to changing the political process by building a campaign built on a broad base of support from Americans, asking them to give personally what they can if they support his candidacy. I have joined those hundreds of thousands who have given as little as $25 each, and I have set my own personal fundraising goal for the campaign, which you can see in the Obameter to the right.

Will you make a donation to help me reach my goal?

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. 

Alexis de Tocqueville