Letters to an Editor

What follows is a list of letters I have written to local and national newspapers in my small effort at making the case for Senator Barack Obama. Some have been published, some have not - all have come from a deep and abiding love of this country and a faith in the inevitable awakening of the American citizen - they can only grab power if we look the other way.

10/30/2008

On November 4th, we will yet again exercise the fundamental tenet of our democracy and cast our ballots. It has never been more important to take a stand for the America we all love than now. At the dawn of a new millennium, at a turning point in our nation’s history and after eight years of faithless stewardship; let us ask our leaders for temperance, reasoned judgment, intellect and wisdom. Let us ask our leaders for vision and for inspiration. Let us wake our apathetic society and mold this country into what we believe it can be. Let us shorten the distance between the world as it is and the world as it could be. Let us decide that at this time, in this election, we will face the myriad challenges confronting us as our Founders intended – E Pluribus Unum – Out of Many, One.

Vote.

10/16/2008

Reasoned thought and real evidence play no part in the current McCain campaign and the echo chamber that is Right-leaning television, radio and print media.

When the bottom began to fall out of our economy, Senator McCain stated that the “fundamentals of the economy are still strong”. Two hours later, he declared that the economy was in crisis. He then “suspended” his campaign to return to Washington to fix the problem – the exact opposite happened. From that point on, his responses to the evolving economic crisis have been erratic at best, dangerously unwise at worst. They have changed policy as quickly as the news cycle can report – with no cohesive vision, no foundations laid out to build an evolving policy upon. They were tactical changes meant to appease and distract specific constituencies and run out the clock to November 4th.

When his poll numbers continued to drop, his campaign stated that “if we continue to talk about the economy, we lose”. Seriously? If you talk about the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, if you talk about the biggest crisis to effect the next President, you lose? I think that speaks volumes about the readiness of Senator McCain to assume the Presidency.

9/4/2008

The Republican party has really surprised me. I understand that not everyone thinks the same on any issue; that's a big part of what makes America work. But I feel that there is a huge difference between the speeches and overall feel of the DNC compared to the RNC. The DNC blasted the McCain campaign for being "more of the same"; an allusion to continuation of the Bush Administration’s policies. This is the plain truth, Senator McCain himself has stated that he voted with Bush “over 90% of the time, more than most of my colleagues”. What I did not hear during the DNC were personal attacks upon the character and history of John McCain. That's class – honoring someone's service, stating that you fully believe that they love their country as much as anyone else but saying that you differ in where to take this country and how. That's a politics I want to be a part of.

That brings us to the headline speaker last night. Sarah Palin in her first real meeting with the American people. She didn't talk about how they wanted to help rebuild America at home and abroad – she dismissed Obama personally through mockery, sarcasm and distortions of truth. This after Obama himself publicly defended her family's right to privacy during a political campaign. Attacks and lies, all the while the bloodthirsty crowd screamed for more… they cheered and cheered while everything noble and good about their party burned to the ground. America is wounded, our Constitution being shredded and true leadership lying dead on the the spear of neo-conservatism. And all they have are attacks, sarcasm, mockery and lies… even if lies by omission. A week went by and she was linked to half a dozen scandals and questionable situations – but questions on those are sexist, right? Except if they happen to Hillary, than it's a woman politician “whining”, right? Or if they happen to Obama, then it's just the American people vetting a nominee, right? To see if he's "one of us", right? Whatever that means.

9/2/2008

I am writing today regarding the hypocrisy of the current Republican party. Senator McCain chose the unheard of Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, to be his running mate. This comes on the heels of a pre-general election campaign message that derided Senator Obama for his apparent “lack of experience”. This campaign message was taken so far as to claim the web site www.notready08.com. Let’s take a look at experience:

Senator Obama was a community organizer on the Southside of Chicago, he served on the Illinois State Senate for 8 years, served as a congressional Senator for 4 years and has been campaigning for the Presidency for over a year and a half. As a point of interest, Chicago is rated as the 3rd most populous city in the US with over 3 million residents and Illinois currently boasts a population in excess of 12.8 million people.

Governor Palin was a member of the Wasilla City Council for 4 years, served as Mayor of Wasilla for 6 years and has been Governor of Alaska for a year and a half (the same amount of time Senator Obama has been campaigning). As a similar point of interest, Wasilla currently boasts slightly over 8,000 residents with the state of Alaska boasting under 700,000 residents.

Now, with experience being the biggest argument Senator McCain has been making, what does a pick like this mean? Have they ever believed their own argument or was it purely political posturing? Is she prepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? Was she an attempt to peel away women voters whom the McCain campaign seem to think vote because of similar reproductive organs rather than similar political viewpoints?

With the first real decision made within their respective Presidental careers, Senator Obama chose Senator Joe Biden and Senator McCain chose Governor Palin. It seems that Senator Obama’s experience created the ability for good judgement. I can’t say the same about Senator McCain’s.

8/05/2008

Why has the McCain campaign stooped to such an idiotic level, accusing Senator Obama of being a celebrity in the vein of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears? Senator McCain seems to want the American voter to temporarily forget that Senator Obama is just that, a Senator in the United States Congress, who is one of two people to represent the entire state of Illinois. He also wants the public to forget that Senator Obama is a Harvard-educated lawyer, the first African-American to be the president of the Harvard Law Review, a former community organizer on the south side of Chicago, a constitutional law professor and a former member of the Illinois State Senate. To top all of this, Senator Obama is the first African-American to win a major political parties nomination for President and the only candidate (ever) to have over 1.5 million private small dollar donors, break fundraising records, run one of the most strategically brilliant campaigns in modern history and accurately assess the issues facing us not only domestically, but abroad.

Has the McCain campaign forgotten about their former ally in the office of Governor of California, who just happens to be one of the biggest action movie stars in history? If they have, have they also forgotten about the former Governor of California who happened to reside in the White House for 8 years and who Republicans can’t line up fast enough to use his legacy as a political tool? When is Senator McCain actually going to give us some “straight talk”?

7/31/2008

I am writing in response to what we have come to know as the “commander-in-chief threshold”. Supposedly, Senator McCain has crossed it due to his service in the military and his years in the Senate. To tell you the truth, his campaign over the last year and a half has made me wonder what skills he has brought with him other than an inability to understand that there is a difference between Sunni and Shia, that Czechoslovakia does not exist, that drilling in ANWR and off the OCS would only benefit the oil companies, that Iraq needs to come to an end, that Afghanistan and Pakistan are where our enemies are currently located, et cetera, et cetera.
Conversely, we continually hear the talking points of “Who is Barack Obama?”, “Is he one of us?” (I’m afraid to ask what this REALLY means); “Does he have what it takes to be President?” Let’s take a look at some of the things he has done just during this campaign:

1) He has run, arguably, one of the most precision-operated and record-breaking campaigns in our history. They had specific goals and specific strategies on how to achieve them. The operation and management of a campaign is the only real assessment tool available to see how a candidate would deal with a Presidential Administration.

2) His assessment on our presence in Iraq has been echoed by the Prime Minister of Iraq and, begrudgingly, by both the McCain campaign and the Bush Administration (they hate to use words like timetables or “time horizons”)

3) He has shown his ability to operate on the world stage, something the McCain campaign has yet to do. They goaded him into traveling overseas and complained when it blew up in their face.

4) He has laid out his plans on all the issues that face us as a nation, rather than spending time and money attacking the McCain campaign.

5) He has shown his ability to articulate and debate his vision for America countless times.

So with just a few of these highlights, what are people really saying when they ask if he can be Presidential? He has outperformed with every test thrown at him and done it with the grace and dignity of a Statesman. It’s been quite awhile since we’ve seen one of those, maybe America has forgotten what real leaders look like.