After I'd finished signing up for a training seminar for a paid GOTV effort for a crucial NY state senate campaign (information about which can be seen here), an editor of a progressive newspaper on my college's campus approached me. He's also the President of our local College Dems chapter, of which I'm a part. He asked if I could write an endorsement piece for Obama, about 600-700 words (I capped it at 810) with some specifics.
The paper was going to do a four-page election spread, showcasing endorsements (some serious, some for humor) from students on campus for Barack Obama, John McCain, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, the Green Party, both of the state senate candidates from the race mentioned above, both of the candidates for our congressional district, our local state assemblyman, and Stephen Colbert.
They were unable to find people willing to write five of those endorsements, including the one for McCain. So they decided to drop the spread. No big deal, but I didn't want my piece to go to waste, so I decided, why not post it here?
It's after the jump.
It is often an eyeroll-inducing phrase, but it is true this year: "This is the most important election of our lives." At least, for those of us born after Franklin Roosevelt's election in 1932, it is.
We have an economy that is faltering, with the government accumulating an unprecedented deficit despite having an unprecedented surplus when the current Bush Administration took power. We're engaged in two wars, one of them completely illegal and unjustified, with our military dispatched elsewhere on the globe as well. In the most prosperous country on the planet, there are over 47 million people without health insurance and over 36.5 million people living in poverty. Currently, the Constitution is effectively a non-binding document when it comes to the executive branch. The federal judiciary is slanted dangerously to the right and the Department of Justice has been turned into a political broadsword. Our process of domestic governance has lost all credibility with the American people, who, once again, have been divided, this time to the point of violence and hatred, by cynical electoral politics. And let us not forget that there is a real, legitimate enemy out there that we have only made stronger. The last eight years have been a showcase of the failures of inept and corrupt leadership. But we can fix that.
November 4th, 2008 will be a historic day and a powerful statement by the people of the United States. By midnight on the east coast, Senator Barack Obama will be President-elect Barack Obama, and he could very well have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in his favor. The mandate to come next Tuesday has been described by some even in corporate media as having the potential to give Mr. Obama the most political power of any incoming President in quite some time. And the people of this country are going to make it happen, because they are quite simply fed up.
The frustration with the direction this country has taken is just too high. The message of "Change" has visibly resonated with the American people, and in Senator John McCain they see a man who, by his own admission, would continue many of the failed policies that have gotten us into this horrible mess. "Change" is not a vague slogan but rather a concept explained with policy specifics regarding issues ranging from universally affordable health care, to the responsible use of our military and the resumption of a law enforcement method to prevent terrorism, to the protection of the environment with real government enforcement behind provisions that will no longer be 'voluntary' and left up to corporations as to whether or not they will follow them, to the opening of necessary diplomatic relations with countries with which we must speak in order to ensure the security of our nation and the world at large, to a progressive tax policy that makes sense for the middle class and the American economy as a whole.
Most pressing, on Iraq, Mr. Obama will issue a new command for the war that should never have been waged, and that is to end it. A phased withdrawal directed by CENTCOM commanders will bring a responsible end to the war by Summer 2010. No permanent bases will be built, and a residual force will remain only to train Iraqis, conduct anti-terrorism missions as deemed necessary, and as in any other country with an American presence - an embassy or otherwise - to protect American diplomats and civilian personnel.
Perhaps the most important issue though is one that cannot be addressed with policy but rather only with conduct. That issue is the crisis of faith the American people are experiencing with their government. The government supposedly of, for, and by the people has failed the people, to an indescribably absurd and previously-thought impossible degree. The people of the United States are sick - we are sick - of having no leadership to look up to, of having no optimism about where this country is headed, and what it means for our jobs, our education, our safety, and therefore our families. This uncertainty about the future and the lack of confidence in the capabilities of government is something no law can correct. It will have to be the ultimate show of leadership by example. There must be a person in that office that the people feel not only trustworthy of, but also inspired by. Over the past 21 months, Americans have gotten to know some black guy from Chicago with a weird name who talks with purpose and uses words like "hope" and speaks passionately about restoring what we used to call the American Dream. In that time, they have decided that he is a man they can trust, a man who can lead us out of the darkness. And I believe they have great reason to believe that.
That is why I am voting for Barack Obama.
Not a critical diary or anything like that, but thanks for taking the time to read it anyway.