At the beginning, I'll admit I was a believer. Following the '04 convention, I daydreamed about the possibility of an Obama run. I heard him give an interview on NPR, and I my eyes began to well up when they asked him to name a great figure from American history that had influenced him (and he said Dorothy Day). Just days after Obama's campaign kicked off in front of the Illinois statehouse, I slapped a big blue Obama decal on the back of my car.
Over the months that followed, I read a lot of people's thoughts, and began to understand their doubts about him. For many here, his rhetoric (based largely on his "We are not two Americas" meme from the convention) sounded suspiciously like DLC-Lieberman-style "moderation". I never bought that argument entirely, though, even as I saw many people I admired begin to peel back their support from him. I thought they were just kinda paranoid.
And then, McClurkin.
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