I have to say, I haven't been this jazzed about a presidential candidate since... ever.
I'm actually doing online volunteering through Http://my.barackobama.com . I've never been one much for volunteering for candidates--causes, sure, but all the other opportunities I've had to volunteer for candidates have seemed... I don't know, oily, I guess.
But I think Senator Obama's the real deal. It's more than just his platform, which is weird because I don't do the cult of personality crap that's so popular in America these days--especially not for politicians. But it's there, with this guy. You can hear it in his speeches.
And even if it's just theatrics and charisma, there's something to be said for that. The last president we had like that convinced America that we could make it to the moon. And we did it, because he made us believe. I don't know what Obama can convince us we're capable of, but I certainly want to find out.
I met him several times when he came to town as a new Senator. He is the real deal. I find that I'm afraid to believe in someone again. It would feel so good, so right, to hope again.
I remember in James Simon Kunen's "The Strawberry Statement" he wrote "If the democrats fail to nominate Clean"; here he meant Clean Gene which is what some of his boosters were calling Sen. Eugene McCarthy: "or worse still if they nominate him and he turns out to be what I believe he is but refuse to admit even to myself, then I will have no choice but to conclude that democracy can not be saved by democratic means." I'm feeling that way about this election. A mix of hope and desperation really. At fifty seven I'm a little long in the tooth to be thinking of revolution but a bit of your uncle Joe Flower's prose keeps haunting me. "Standing by the fire feel bones and old wounds embers of memory yellow and gray. Joe Parker, Remember Joe Parker? Used to loan me his pocket knife to cut out the pictures in the paper. He died that first year of the fighting in the mountains north of LA." -- Tom Horne
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 10:48 pm (UTC)I'm actually doing online volunteering through Http://my.barackobama.com . I've never been one much for volunteering for candidates--causes, sure, but all the other opportunities I've had to volunteer for candidates have seemed... I don't know, oily, I guess.
But I think Senator Obama's the real deal. It's more than just his platform, which is weird because I don't do the cult of personality crap that's so popular in America these days--especially not for politicians. But it's there, with this guy. You can hear it in his speeches.
And even if it's just theatrics and charisma, there's something to be said for that. The last president we had like that convinced America that we could make it to the moon. And we did it, because he made us believe. I don't know what Obama can convince us we're capable of, but I certainly want to find out.
Obama
Date: 2008-02-05 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 03:16 am (UTC)My Son that would be more than enough.
Date: 2008-02-07 04:55 am (UTC)--
Tom Horne