In High School, Mr. Lloyd was my Government teacher and my friend. When he was in High School, his father was a Senator and Mr. Lloyd was a hellraiser. He had a podium that he would lean on, and a pencil (or a cigarette) that he always held in his right hand. When I was a senior, I earned the highly coveted role of being his first period aide. My duties included bringing coffee, the paper, and my juvenile views of the days news and politics to him by 9am. Those mornings were the highlights of my high school days.
Many people called him Captain America. However, unlike many teachers and many politicians, it wasn’t his exact ideas and views that he wanted to inoculate you with. In addition to teaching and taking students to Washington DC, he taught us how to think critically, engage in proper discourse and to always have at least ten reasons for what you believe in. He would count your reasons, and if you came up short – he would tap his pencil on the podium until you came up with one. And you better make it a good one.
If I could have coffee with my dear friend this morning, I would proudly tell him that I voted for Obama, and here are eleven reason why:
- Obama has the right kind of experience – and the ability to say many things with very few words. All over Iowa, he used a one quote and two sentences when he told audiences, “experience is important, but there is the wrong kind of experiences and the right kind of experience. My experience is working in the real lives of real people, and I will bring real results if we have the courage to bring about change. I’ll have to admit that these are not my words, but Bill Clinton’s words when he was running for president in 1992. Bill Clinton was right then, and Barack Obama is right now”. 35 years of experience, my ass.
- I think for myself, but you cannot negate the old adage that birds of a feather, flock together. My activist and musician buddy Dave Matthews has endorsed Obama. Oprah, one of the most powerful women of our era, has stopped giving away free cars and opening schools to support a fellow proponent of positive change. The legitimate Kennedy’s revised their “Christmas Card List”… and George Clooney, and all his sexiness, is for Obama as well. And pretty much everyone who voted for Al Gore, and then John Kerry…is for Obama.
- His Early Childhood Education Plan makes me want to have kids so they can experience his Zero to Five plan.
- Obama may not be a war hero, but he has been the peoples hero by repeatedly demonstrating his good judgment. My Grandfather served in the Army, fought in wars, earned a Silver Star and a Purple Heart with a cluster. He’s lost countless nights of sleep, and so has Grandma. His experience did not solely make him a Lieutenant Colonel. His experience did not save him during moments of attack. It was his good judgment and his ability to lead others that earned him the ability to make change and to this day be saluted when he buys groceries at the commissary. And for the record, Grandma has never considered herdelf to be a war hero.
- I support national security and the Department of Defense efforts. I understand the unavoidable costs of freedom. However, I am certain that we may have had other options in 2002. Obama accurately predicted that the war would lead to “an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs and for undetermined lengths”. His plan to get us out might just work.
- He’s not Hillary.
- He never supported George Bush’s War.
- Unlike McCain, Obama supports Roe v Wade.
- Money does talk, and Obama has raised a lot of it. Specifically, $6.9 – almost a third this quarter- has come from 50,000 donors on the internet. Almost 90% of those donations were for $100 – or less. In total, he’s collected donations totaling almost $32 million dollars from over 100,000 people. The people want Obama.
- Having the Supreme Court Justices all on the far right scares me tremendously. The next President of the United States will appoint a minimum of three Superior Court justices, who will serve for at least the next 40 years. That would change our world and our children’s world, and not for the better.
- He wants to be President; he does not need to be President. There is a very big difference.
