Why I Voted for Barack Obama

Why I voted for Barack Obama, and Why I won't vote Hillary Clinton

On July 29th, 2004, I woke up early in the morning in an unfortunate uninspired mood. It was the last day of the Democratic National convention, and I like many of the youth of America, felt disheartened at the choices we were being faced with. I spent the day reading about John Kerry, looking for something to inspire me. I found nothing.

It was that night that a man previously unknown to me changed my life forever. Barack Obama, a relative unknown man running for a spot in the Senate from Illinois, gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. It was during that speech that I felt inspired for the first time about politics.

For me, it has never been about Democrats and Republicans, or Liberals and Conservatives. It has been about hope, unity, and trying to work things out. He embodied
Everything I could have asked for in a leader and more. I just want someone who can make it right, whether he be on the left, or the right, or in the center; whether he be black, white, female, Mormon, catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hispanic, old, young, a former POW, or a slightly crazy former Governor of Vermont. I really did not care, I just wanted a change.

Of course, why wouldn't I want change? I spent the 90's watching blowjobs, government shutdowns, impeachments, and an influx of anti-hope in the form of Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich and the DLC. Cue the 2000 election debacle, where most people lost faith in our election system, and saw my semi-inspiring candidate have the election stolen from him by George Bush.

See, this is my problem with the political world today. In the 80's, Reagan had his little Reagan revolution which I am perfectly fine with. As I said, I don't care if you have opposing views than I do. He inspired people, like JFK before him, and FDR before him, and that was important to me.

Between the formation of the Insidious DLC in response to Reagan trying to inspire people, and the response to that of Tom Delay and Gingrich's "Contract with America," Americans were officially screwed out of a future. For 12 years, I remained disgusted with the political climate in this country, and then Barack Osama announced he was running for President.

Barack Obama, and to a lesser extent Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul run and act like politicians should. They speak frankly to audiences, talk about messages of hope, and while they differ on countless positions, they both seem united in their goal to pump new life into Politics where people can get along and the political system might work again.

Whereas Hillary Clinton being elected president will not only continue a two-family rule to at least 40 years if you count Bush being Vice President, she will also do nothing to fix the issues we have. Clinton, Romney, Rudy Guliani, and John Edwards are the people you don't want leading this country. They are the conduits of the status quo, of political disparity, of not reaching across the aisle. They practice the politics of corruption, division, and immoral practices. Most of all, they will continue to allow the country to splinter itself into Red States and Blue states when the reality of the matter is that we should all be united under one flag, with one goal; to make the United States of America a beacon that the rest of the world looks upon with glee, rather than the disdain caused as of this moment.

We can't spend our political capital overseas engaging in bickering, insulting the old guard in Europe for not getting in line with our policies, unilateral wars, or crapping on the international institutions we helped to create. We cannot continue to ignore the strife in Africa, Southeast Asia, and parts of South America.

I voted for Barack Obama because I believe he is the man who will lead this country back into greatness, to a time when Georgia and Massachusetts, or California and Texas can look at each other with smiles on there metaphorical faces knowing that these two very different states united to vote for a man who speaks of fixing the problems we all see in our system.