OBAMA

About three years ago when presidential candidates started campaigning (okay, maybe it hasn’t been quite that long), I began to take an increased interest in Barack Obama. I was mesmerized by his presence and his message of hope at the Democratic Convention in 2004. That night, I talked to my mom on the phone and she said “I want to vote for that guy!” I was one of many who were privately wishing for Obama to enter the 2008 race. When he did, I was cautiously optimistic.


When he joined the race, I began to pay attention to his news coverage, subscribed to his podcast, and generally did everything I could to keep track of him. The more I listened and the more I learned, the more I believed Obama was unlike any presidential candidate I’d ever seen. He spoke about issues in such a reasoned and rational way, without any of the sensationalism that is typical of a congressman trying to get his or her name in the paper. Obama is older than I am, but for the first time I felt like I was hearing the voice of my generation: someone who wants to address the issues that I care about, who really appreciates the complexity of these issues, and doesn’t just treat them as a prop in his sound bites. In short, I believed that he must be completely unelectable!

Last Tuesday, the day of the New Hampshire primary, after Obama had won the Iowa caucus, the front page of the Wall Street Journal had an article about how Obama had double-digit leads over Hillary in NH polls. I was beyond ecstatic. I literally felt the same way that I felt on Election Day 2004 when exit polls showed John Kerry way ahead of Bush. I now completely despise pollsters, by the way. When Obama was edged out in the NH primary, I felt motivated like never before: This is too big an opportunity at too critical a time for our country. On Wednesday, along with more than 20,000 others similarly motivated, Beth and I donated to Obama’s campaign. We later discovered that our brother- and sister-in-law (registered Republicans, for the record) had also donated to Obama on Wednesday.

This is the first of many ways we hope to be able to support the campaign. I’ll post more about that later, but for now let me encourage you to go to the Barack Obama website. It’s a fantastic site and if you don’t know anything about Obama it’s a great place to see where he stands on the issues and watch some of his speeches. If you come away with as much hope as I have, then make a donation.