My name is Tresha and I, I support Obama.
Here's why.

I've been following politics pretty closely since the Reagan/Carter election. Now granted I was too young to vote back then, being as how I was in Jr High and all, but I was still fascinated with the whole process.
Come the 1992 campaign I was a brand new little baby dyke living in the queer part of Dallas and was swept up (pretty easily) in the Clinton fervor. I did some campaigning for him and worked the phone banks. I even got to go to a rally and see him speak. I couldn't actually hear him speak, but I saw him. I also got about 30 feet away from him until the Secret Service took me down.
I kid, I got about 30 feet away as he was working the rope line and I was simply in awe of his charisma and his ability to bring a pretty dang large crowd of Texans out to hear him.
I don't particularly like the current President Bush.
I didn't like him when he was Governor down here and haven't been all that impressed with his presidency.

Onto Obama.
He's the first candidate I've ever seen, including Bill Clinton who has inspired as many people as his campaign has to be involved.
He speaks of having a policy of governing with empathy.
Of applying real life situations to the "family" test. Would he want his children to go to a school that is broken down, bankrupt and drug infested?
Would he want his grandparents to live a hand to mouth existence because they have to choose between paying for medicine or paying for food?

I like, respect and admire that with his intelligence and Harvard degree he could have had his choice of high paying jobs and instead he chose to work within his community to make things better there first.

To be sickeningly honest, he has lived the kind of public service oriented life I wish I could have lived.
I've always had a sense that if good people could and would come together and work for the common good that this country would be a better place for all.
I've attempted to do what I can when I can to make my corner of the world a better place for those around me and yes, for myself.
Senator Obama seems to embody those beliefs I have and has worked to put them in action.

I respect that he is intelligent enough to know that he doesn't have all the answers; but that he can surround himself with good, smart people and learn from them.

I don't actually have a great deal against McCain. It bothers me a bit that he seems to have a history of misogynistic attitudes, but it doesn't bother me enough to inspire rabid hatred of him. Palin scares me a bit cause it seems like so far anyway, that she's a pretty rabid fundamentalist and fundamentalism of any kind alarms me in an elected official; especially one aspiring to such a high govt office.
I'm one of the few Dems I know who doesn't think McCain is a carbon copy of President Bush.
I don't want McCain as my president, but if he and Palin win I won't be as despairing as I was both times President Bush won.

What it all comes down to for me, is that Senator Obama is the kind of man and the kind of leader I look for in an elected official. He's been a leader long before he was elected to any office and that speaks volumes to me.

Plus, the Kool-Aid is really really good.

__________________
Tresha
Resident Lesbian Rabble Rouser
Taking pride in my work since August ':08
Lesbian MAFIA

Ignore the rumors:
Tresha hates small appliances

Tresha, I wish everyone could post their political thoughts as well as you have. Even though we disagree I respect you having an opinion.

As I have said in many of my posts when I vote I'm not shopping for a leader, I'm looking for more of an employee type. I think POTUS is just another job 99% of the time where decisions are based on previous trials. If they were successful we keep doing it, if it was unsuccessful we try something else. In my opinion Obama desires to try again many of the Jimmy Carter failures and ignores the Ronald Reagan successes.

Having lived in most of those times you mention I have another perspective. Carter was our only moral president and because of that he weighed things too much and worse, shared those thoughts. Societies don't want to hear complexity, they want simplicity. But had the hostages got out earlier, which should have happened, Carter may still have won. People forget the economic mess Nixon/Ford left him, stagflation and then the oil embargo.

I look at Reagan as the beginning of the decline of America, especially the middle class. I have even read various historians who have a similar view. The fall of Russia and the firing of the air traffic controllers created hubris on the one hand and no support for workers on the other. I give Reagan credit for realizing his tax policies were wrecking the country and he then instituted the largest peace time tax increase ever. Maybe if Reagan hadn't been so old he would have changed even quicker as I think he was basically a good man.

Clinton and the constant republican witch hunt was an interesting time. But Clinton sold out the middle class with nafta and his personal foibles gave his detractors too much ammo. Bush jr is the worst, no need to get into him.

McCain has sold his soul for this opportunity, flip flopping on so many things. The fact he graduated at the bottom of his class is a bit scary and the way he discarded his first wife for youth and money is hardly praise worthy. Palin is so far right I could never consider her a potential president. If they are elected, roe v wade will probably fall and we will return to the sad times when only the rich could get abortions and the poor suffered as the poor suffer. That is happening now.

Obama offers another vision of hope for change. His core values are for the working people, his grandparents did a heck of job raising him it seems. It is ironic and telling that those who had it a little tougher in life give back. I know so many rich kids who think it is all about me.

A vote for McCain/Palin is a vote against the fundamental principle of America, the right of the individual to lead their life privately without the government interfering.

America since 1980, I finished this book not long ago. Worth a read.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds...to-a-dead-end/








I always wondered about the log cabin republicans

I agree and disagree.
It is a job and we are the employer... but the requirements of that position are largely based on leadership qualifications.
And if we are going to get into the "failures of Carter... successes of Reagan", the ones I find most legitimate (as I think many of Reagan's celebrated policies are highly overrated) directly involve leadership. Reagan sparked an optimism in the people and mobilized them, while Carter (despite many of his critiques of the American people being fundamentally correct) did little to inspire them with the "malaise" speech.
Leadership is one of the most important qualifications of the job... not the only one, but certainly a big one.

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That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.

I really admire your post.