The Case for Obama Pt. III

I was asked by a friend, how is it that I am making the "Case for Obama" and have never stated personally (on the blog) why I am supporting him. I thought about the comments I shared with regular citizens when I went out canvassing in my neighborhood encouraging people to get out and vote, and to vote for Barack Obama!

When is the last time someone knocked on your door and asked you to get out and vote for a candidate? Obama has inspired me and millions of Americans to get involved.

I have always voted, but never have I felt truly passionate about a candidate like I do now. In the past I picked my candidate because they were the lesser of 2 evils, or because I just disliked one of them so much I voted for the other one. With Obama all of that has changed. I really believe that we can turn around the downward spiral that the Bush administration has placed us on. I believe that the time to do it is NOW and Obama is the MAN that can do it.

I have read Obama’s Blueprint for America and as an Engineer I know that a good Blueprint is the foundation to getting something built. I know that his solutions are just as good as his speeches. I know that he can make a difference in Washington by bringing the parties together, and bringing our country together. I know that the biggest problem we have had over the past decades is not a lack of quality candidates, but more so men of questionable CHARACTER. When I see Obama I know by his candor that he is a MAN of Integrity.

I know that when facing a tough decision that whatever decision he makes will be what is in the best interest of our country, not in his own best interest, not in the interest of lobbyists, not in the interest of being re-elected, not in the interest of the wealthiest Americans.

That is what is important, and that is what is missing in the White House. A man of good CHARACTER that believes in the people of America, and realizes to make CHANGE you don't just change the face at the White House, but you must CHANGE the entire outlook of our government. Just as he has inspired me, he has inspired millions of others. He is the one that can create unity between the parties, he is the one that will get things doe that REALLY MATTER to the AMERICAN PEOPLE!!! Read more!

The Race of Life

There is an African Proverb that goes.....

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle awakens.

He has only one thought on his mind: To be able to run faster than the fastest lion. If he cannot, then he will be eaten.

Every morning in Africa a lion awakens.

He has only one thought on his mind: To be able to run faster than the slowest gazelle. If he cannot, he will die of hunger.

Whether you choose to be a gazelle or a lion is of no consequence. It is enough to know that with the rising of the sun, you must run. And you must run faster than you did yesterday or you will die.

“This is the race of life."

A few weeks ago I was watching the movie Higher Learning. Not to go into too much detail, the lead actor was an All-American collegiate track star. He was in the office of his academic advisor complaining about how difficult it was to be in school, be an athlete, and be being black.

He told his advisor he was ready to quit school. The advisor says to him:

You are a runner, a big time track star!

What happens when you get to the race and you suspect that the opposing team has a runner, that is bigger, faster, stronger, and more big-time than yourself? What do you do then? Do you leave the track???

He replies, “Heck no, I RUN FASTER!”

We can all run faster, we all must run faster:

We RUN FASTER because we know that we can, we know that anytime we are giving all of our effort we can win the race.

We RUN FASTER because we have to at least be able to tell ourselves that we tried, we can’t accept defeat without trying, if we fail we know we have to keep trying harder

We RUN FASTER because we know you don’t always win because you are the strongest, or the fastest, or even the smartest. The winner is the one that has the most heart.

The film has a very simple message, if at any time we are giving any less than our best, I mean everything that we have, we are cheating ourselves. Read more!

Are you Listening?

Several people supporters and opponents of Obama have asked my opinion of the inflammatory comments made by Obama’s former pastor (Rev. Wright) and Obama’s speech confronting racism.

On the comments from Wright?

I can’t say I am surprised to hear the statements, but I can say I was surprised to hear them from the pulpit. Being from the South, I guess socioeconomically we are doing better as a race, so most of the preaching we hear is what is coined as “Prosperity Preaching.” I imagine in areas like Chicago that just does not sell. You can’t tell a congregation of people that don’t even have a car to pray to God they get a new Cadillac Escalade.

The biggest surprise to me is that Obama attended this kind of church. Not so much because of the comments from Rev. Wright, but just how he said it. My wife and I have said that, “the days of the jumping and hollering preachers are over!” This is as we left a similar church we had attended for years. We left because we had issue with the Pastor and the Church message was becoming less Bible-centric, but even he would have never spoke words like these from the pulpit.

I never considered Obama a deeply religious man. This shows that he was really just “going to church just to be going.” This Church in Chicago like most large churches is a pillar in the community, and Rev. Wright was wildly popular as an advocate for improvements in quality of life for Blacks. It is apparent as you see how well decorated he is, even making an appearance in Fort Worth to get yet another award from Texas Christian University (TCU). Obama attended this Church because it was en vogue to say among Black People that he was a member.

I think what this brings in to question more than anything is the sincerity of his Christian faith. As the saying goes, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, any more than sitting in the garage makes you a car.”

On Obama’s Speech?

My thoughts are simple, his entire point was to say, “Do not allow yourself to marginalize ME based on race." The point WAS NOT to defend Wright. It was to recognize and appreciate racism exists. Hate is rampant in the U.S. and everyone that hates sees themselves as right.

So I will just say, anyone that makes the point of this speech a defense of Wright misses the entire point of the speech.

To continually ostracize every single person that has a position that opposes someone else's is just not progressive. It was why racially and socioeconomically Americans are more divided today than ever before. The past generations have failed miserably to bring us together. The H-O-P-E is in our generation and future generations to strive for more progressive thinking.

I think his speech was a little Black-centric because he was trying to offer some insight and understanding on the Black experience in America. What he needs to realize is that White people DO NOT want to understand Blacks. He should have been more focused on listing out all of the White people that have been labeled as "racists" for making remarks of what are essentially commonly held beliefs by a large segment of the population, and explained why this is wrong. Blacks suffer from the same problem, they DO NOT want to understand.

At the end of the day it is not racism that we suffer from so much as it is selfishness. The problem is that selfishness breeds resentment, which breeds hate, and that hate lashes out on whoever appears to be the obstacle.

White people want to live the American Dream, Black people want their 40 acres and a mule. Funny thing is all of us have more than we will ever need, we just get stuck on wanting what somebody else has and end up fighting each other.

What is even more funny is that the person you are fighting has no more than you do, so in winning that fight you gain nothing!!! Read more!

It’s NCAA Tourney Time

As a sports fan this is the most exciting time of year for me. I am one of those fanatics that take off work for the Opening Round! I tried taking off a ½ day but always got stuck at work. I tried working from home, but people always scheduled meetings during the middle of the day, so I would be on the conference call with the game on in the background (on mute of course). Of course that did not work after my outburst in the middle of the meeting because one of the teams I picked to make the Final Four had just loss on the 1st day. So I have just resolved to take the entire days as vacation…..

This year I am interrupted because I have a friend that scheduled his Service Anniversary for Thursday, and I am leaving out for a “Road Trip” to Memphis early Friday morning.

This year’s tournament has already proven to be interesting before any game has been played. For the 1st time I can remember the 4 teams that I thought should be the #1 seeds actually were selected. Mostly due to the fact that all of the Top Teams won their Conference Tournaments making it a little easier for the Selection Committee.

Other Notables:

1) A number of teams from Mid-Major conferences (like Drake, Gonzaga, George Mason) have been seeded to play against each other in the 1st round. I have to wonder if this is an effort to marginalize their impact in the tournament to keep them from knocking out schools from the Power Conferences (like Purdue, Arizona, Villanova), or if it is an effort to try and increase the opportunity for them to advance deeper into the tournament. Of course you know I believe it is the former not the latter reason. The logic does not add up to create more opportunity by ensuring that less Mid-Major teams are eligible to play in the next round.

2) The other is the relative agreement across the nation that the Selection Committee pretty much got it right. The only questionable decision was putting in Arizona over Arizona St, when they played twice this season and loss both times.

3) There has been some talk about expanding the tournament, or getting rid of the automatic bids. I have blogged on this topic before…..

So I will end putting my picks on the line. Last year for only the 2nd time ever I pocked the Final 4 perfectly, but somehow managed not to pick either of the teams that played in the Championship! This year my Final 4 is my team “KU”, Tennessee, TU (Longhorns), and UCLA. As you know if I am picking the Jayhawks to make the Final 4 I have picked them to win it all….

Rah, Rah, Jayhawk, KU! Rock Chalk Jayhawks!!! Read more!

The Case for Obama Pt. II

This is the 2nd installment of my series on my case for Obama. I probably have about 10, not sure I will get around to all of them. I will call this one....

Voters Judge Issues and Character Not Race

It is frustrating that racial issues keep rising to the top of this presidential primary. Most responsible voters will base their decisions on substantive issues. Voting based on a preference is not limited to race or Obama. Just as their are Black people that vote for Obama because he is Black, there are people that DO NOT vote for him because he is Black, there are people that vote for Clinton because she is White, or because she is a woman. Just as there are people that vote for McCain because he is White, or because he is old, because he is a Republican (even though he really isn't they still do).

Obama has primary victories in an array of states and has proven he can draw support from all races and regions, and that he is not overly reliant on Black voters. In my precinct which is 2% Black and heavily GOP Obama won the Precinct and Caucus. As I attended rallies, house parties supporting Obama in my area I found myself often as the only Black person. When I visited the Obama campaign office in North Fort Worth there were predominantly Whites of all ages, from all over this country California, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Colorado.

Obama himself frustrated said, "We keep on thinking we've dispelled this, and it keeps on getting raised once again. In each new primary, we seem to have to prove this stuff all over." Unfortunately neither he or anyone else can accomplish the political divisiveness of race.

Critics suggest he hasn't proven that he can win white, blue-collar workers, but he won in Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri, Colorado, and Iowa! Read more!

The Case for Obama

Instead of doing one long blog entry I thought I would break this up into a series.

Did I miss something? I thought we, the American people, wanted something different in a presidential candidate this time. Someone civil, decent, cultured. An intelligent moderate. A man or woman who would do us proud on the world stage.

That was the way it was presented to us when the campaign started a year or so ago, but now that higher version of ourselves seems to be falling. After initial defeats to the elegant Obama, the angry Hillary has bounded back with an almost savage energy, and we, the American people, were impressed enough with her "toughness" to give her 3 state primary victories in a row, not knowing what that quality would really represent in a president.

Obama was "unprepared" to be commander in chief of the United States, the tough and commanding Hillary declared. Obama was unprepared for the crisis of the nuclear call at 3 a.m., her ads did more than insinuate. Obama's advisers even began publicly advising him to "change his tone" and to "fight back," and lose the lower ground to which she had so deliberately carried the discussion.

He rightly answered: "The question is not about picking up the phone. The question is what kind of judgment will you make when you answer?" To which Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia commented, "What matters most in the Oval Office is sound judgment and decisive action. It's about getting it right on crucial national security questions the first time -- and every time."

But that is not what Hillary is talking about these unpleasant, unnecessary days. Her mantra now is, "I am a fighter. I am a fighter." Very well, but what exactly does that mean?

Does that mean she is fighting the Republicans? It does not appear so, not when she says so unnervingly that Republican candidate John McCain is eminently capable of being commander in chief, but that her fellow Democrat Barack Obama, supposedly for "lack of experience," is not.

She is a fighter against Democrats -- men and women who essentially believe in the same precepts and principles as she does? So the fighter mantra ultimately comes down to merely a struggle to advance her own intense and often reckless ambition.

Obama made the point. "She had the view that what's required is simply to fight," he said, referring to her doomed healthcare plan of the '90s. "And Sen. Clinton ended up fighting not just the insurance companies and the drug companies, but also members of her own party."

What's more, Hillary Clinton's insinuations about Obama's supposed inexperience are quite amusing. When you look back at Bill Clinton's eight years, they were years of almost unmitigated disaster for foreign policy. I "loved" Bill Clinton as much as anyone, but....

Under his commanding leadership, we helped Russia "democratize," a series of disastrous interventions that led directly to the new anti-American autocracy today; the White House sent a directive to Somalia to go after the head chieftain there, ending in the tragic death of Americans and the end of the Somali mission. It took years of disaster in the Balkans before Bill Clinton moved to take any action at all in 1995 with the Dayton Accords and 1999 with the bombing of Serbia and the freeing of Kosovo.

As for Hillary's other big foreign policy question -- should an American president speak to undesirable foreign leaders? The question in foreign policy is not to have a president who sets rigid parameters, but one who understands the mentalities at work in the peoples and leaders of the world, and thus knows what will work and what will not. Obama has that crucial capacity Former Secretary of State James Baker III, said, "There's no such thing as presidential experience outside of the office itself." The quality we ought to seek, he went on, "is leadership."

That is a quality that Obama has, but also with a refusal to get down and dirty with some of his less discerning opponents. Leadership is not fighting whatever gets in your precious way at any moment. It is exemplifying an entire set of profound American principles and beliefs and giving such expression to them on the international stage that other peoples will want to be more, and not less, like us.

Isn't it strange that, as the campaign gets more unpleasant Hillary sounds, looks and acts more and more like the man she would replace. One can almost hear her replaying W's attitude of anytime, anyplace, at any cost. Read more!