A Changing World Needs a Changing Candidate
Mr. Vice President,
I received an e-mail from Ted Kennedy today which was presumably sent to all Barack Obama supporters comparing Barack Obama’s brand of politics to the “new generation” of politics John F. Kennedy promised. In the e-mail, Sen. Kennedy states “This campaign is about a new generation of leadership today. A generation ready to be part of something bigger than themselves. A generation ready to change the country, and a generation ready to change the world. I’m doing everything I can to elect Barack Obama.”
I was 14 in 1992, when I was swept up by the visit in Buffalo made by the Clinton/Gore campaign. The promise then was similar to what I read today - a new generation of leadership, bipartisanship, a president the country can feel good about during struggling economic and international times - and I believed it. I didn’t just believe the message, I believed the people delivering the message, and while I couldn’t vote, I wished I could. I turned 18 in 1996, and still believed in the people delivering the message, and still had hope. It is irrelevant now whether I, the country, or history looks wistfully, regretfully, or angrily on those years, as, those years are now, history.
It is now 2008. Myself, the country and the world has changed, and so has the perception of the country. We are now engaged in further crises’, some of which are so reminiscent to those times, its incredible - a war in the gulf, concerns about social security, a national need for universal health care, an economic crisis tilting on recession, and the country is as polarized as it has been in my lifetime. Politics, and to a lesser extent, the American way of life, has turned into polarization and demonizing anyone who is different, disagrees, or could be considered an opponent. The country can no longer remain divided, and there is no more polarizing figure in American politics today than Hillary Clinton.
I am writing you today, not for my distaste of Hillary Clinton, but for my adoration of Barack Obama. I believe Barack Obama when I look on his website and it says he will fight for the rights of single parents and for father’s paying child support. I believe Barack Obama when he states he will invest heavily in training and retaining the best teachers, that his higher education plans are the best, and believes america’s future is in the maths and sciences. I believe him when he states we are lagging behind in technology and will invest in getting internet access across the country, while still ensuring an open internet. I believe him when he states he cares about the environment, and I believed him when he voted against the war in Iraq the first time, and remained consistently against the war in Iraq, and never changed his view that the Iraq war was wrong because it diverted us from stopping terrorism, which should remain, and is a key component of his campaign.
Barack Obama appears to be the honest, true, able and ethical leader the country needs at this critical time, and I believe an endorsement from you would be of great signifigance to his campaign, to the party, and would do a service to your country. Your record speaks on its own, as you have built a war chest of trust with the American people and most significantly, democrats still searching for an answer.
Barack Obama appears to solely do what is right, so I urge you to search your soul, realize what is right, and do the right thing.
Thank you for considering,
~Todd Morse
Hamburg, NY