Election
After careful consideration of the candidates and the issues, I am hereby announcing my official endorsement of Barack Obama for the position of President of the United States of America.
Like many who have put their support behind Senator Obama, I have been struck by the transformative potential of his candidacy. Senator Obama has, alone among the candidates, a unique gift of inclusive leadership. While there are other qualified candidates that could ably execute the duties of the Presidency, Senator Obama is alone in his ability to unite the disparate factions of America. I believe that under Senator Obama's leadership, the divisions that have fractured our nation over the past decades can begin to heal. I also believe that this positive message will extend not just to our domestic issues but also to the wider world, where America is sorely in need of regaining good will. With this in mind, then, I urge all of you to carefully consider your own votes and cast them for Senator Obama.
In addition, I would like to take a few moments to comment on the actions and attitudes of some people during the campaign, most notably Senator Clinton. Going into this campaign process, I was excited at the idea of having either a woman or an African-American elected president, as I felt it was an appropriate and overdue recognition of equality among Americans. Further, while I had concerns about the negative attitude that many Americans seemingly held towards Senator Clinton, I myself did not share that attitude. Indeed, I have never quite understood the depth of dislike aimed towards Senator Clinton.
Now that the campaign has been in full stride for some time, I find that I have now learned the basis of that dislike. Senator Clinton has run a campaign based on division, distraction and intellectual dishonesty. She has consistently attempted to undermine both the campaign of Senator Obama specifically and the tone of reconciliation generally by playing up fabricated and overblown divisions of gender and race. As such she has done a great disservice not only to herself and the Democratic Party, but also to the real gender and race issues that face our nation. As her campaign has gone along, I have become increasingly displeased and dismayed by the tone and execution of her campaign and thus find that I have no choice but to support her opponent.
These opinions and decisions of mine were based almost entirely on the actions of Senator Clinton's campaign, and though I entered this process excited by the possibility of a female candidate I have become disenchanted with the specific person who fills that role. Thus I am also extremely disappointed with the reaction of NOW and other prominent female politicians towards Senator Kennedy's endorsement of Senator Obama. In his endorsement, Senator Kennedy pointed out in detail the many specifics of Senator Clinton's campaign that he disagreed with and that led him to his endorsement. These were much the same reasons that I myself have been turned away from Senator Clinton's campaign. You can imagine, then, my displeasure with NOW's declaration that Senator Kennedy's endorsement is a betrayal of women and the cause of gender equality. NOW seems to be under the mistaken impression that because Senator Clinton is woman, everything she does is sacrosanct, and anyone who disagrees with her is sexist. Not only are they greatly mistaken in this belief, they do serious harm to their own cause and that of Senator Clinton by creating a false gender division and promoting friction between genders where previously none existed. Further, by reducing all actions to merely reflections of gender, they minimize the actual strengths of both Senator Clinton and women in general. In conclusion, I was both insulted and dismayed by the retrograde and cartoonish denouncement of Senator Kennedy and by extension any men who fail to endorse Senator Clinton, and I find I have lost respect for NOW as an organization.
Lastly, I would also like to point out the continued and utter incompetence of the people of Florida, who once again have managed to find themselves at the center of a voting scandal, this time with the assistance of Senator Clinton. By being greedy and trying to overextend their own influence -- which was unnecessary due to the outsized influence Florida already has -- Florida was stripped of its delagates by the Democratic National Committee. This was done because Florida broke party rules by moving their primary into January. All candidates agreed not to participate in the primary. Now that Senator CLinton has won this uncontested and meaningless event, however, she has decided that suddenly Florida should get delegates. This is patently unfair, but the people of Florida are happy to go along with it because it means that once again they get to have a deciding influence over our nation's policies. In the last this has proven to be extremely detrimental to our nation. I am personally displeased both with the backhanded and duplicitous measures being taken by Senator Clinton to steal phantom delegates as well as the continued idiocy displayed by the incompetents and fools that comprise the state of Florida. At this point I think it would be perfectly fair for both the DNC and the Supreme Court to declare that the opinions of Florida are hereby null and void not just for this election, but in perpetuity, as they have proven time and again to be incapable of satisfying even the most rudimentary requirements of a democracy.
Like many who have put their support behind Senator Obama, I have been struck by the transformative potential of his candidacy. Senator Obama has, alone among the candidates, a unique gift of inclusive leadership. While there are other qualified candidates that could ably execute the duties of the Presidency, Senator Obama is alone in his ability to unite the disparate factions of America. I believe that under Senator Obama's leadership, the divisions that have fractured our nation over the past decades can begin to heal. I also believe that this positive message will extend not just to our domestic issues but also to the wider world, where America is sorely in need of regaining good will. With this in mind, then, I urge all of you to carefully consider your own votes and cast them for Senator Obama.
In addition, I would like to take a few moments to comment on the actions and attitudes of some people during the campaign, most notably Senator Clinton. Going into this campaign process, I was excited at the idea of having either a woman or an African-American elected president, as I felt it was an appropriate and overdue recognition of equality among Americans. Further, while I had concerns about the negative attitude that many Americans seemingly held towards Senator Clinton, I myself did not share that attitude. Indeed, I have never quite understood the depth of dislike aimed towards Senator Clinton.
Now that the campaign has been in full stride for some time, I find that I have now learned the basis of that dislike. Senator Clinton has run a campaign based on division, distraction and intellectual dishonesty. She has consistently attempted to undermine both the campaign of Senator Obama specifically and the tone of reconciliation generally by playing up fabricated and overblown divisions of gender and race. As such she has done a great disservice not only to herself and the Democratic Party, but also to the real gender and race issues that face our nation. As her campaign has gone along, I have become increasingly displeased and dismayed by the tone and execution of her campaign and thus find that I have no choice but to support her opponent.
These opinions and decisions of mine were based almost entirely on the actions of Senator Clinton's campaign, and though I entered this process excited by the possibility of a female candidate I have become disenchanted with the specific person who fills that role. Thus I am also extremely disappointed with the reaction of NOW and other prominent female politicians towards Senator Kennedy's endorsement of Senator Obama. In his endorsement, Senator Kennedy pointed out in detail the many specifics of Senator Clinton's campaign that he disagreed with and that led him to his endorsement. These were much the same reasons that I myself have been turned away from Senator Clinton's campaign. You can imagine, then, my displeasure with NOW's declaration that Senator Kennedy's endorsement is a betrayal of women and the cause of gender equality. NOW seems to be under the mistaken impression that because Senator Clinton is woman, everything she does is sacrosanct, and anyone who disagrees with her is sexist. Not only are they greatly mistaken in this belief, they do serious harm to their own cause and that of Senator Clinton by creating a false gender division and promoting friction between genders where previously none existed. Further, by reducing all actions to merely reflections of gender, they minimize the actual strengths of both Senator Clinton and women in general. In conclusion, I was both insulted and dismayed by the retrograde and cartoonish denouncement of Senator Kennedy and by extension any men who fail to endorse Senator Clinton, and I find I have lost respect for NOW as an organization.
Lastly, I would also like to point out the continued and utter incompetence of the people of Florida, who once again have managed to find themselves at the center of a voting scandal, this time with the assistance of Senator Clinton. By being greedy and trying to overextend their own influence -- which was unnecessary due to the outsized influence Florida already has -- Florida was stripped of its delagates by the Democratic National Committee. This was done because Florida broke party rules by moving their primary into January. All candidates agreed not to participate in the primary. Now that Senator CLinton has won this uncontested and meaningless event, however, she has decided that suddenly Florida should get delegates. This is patently unfair, but the people of Florida are happy to go along with it because it means that once again they get to have a deciding influence over our nation's policies. In the last this has proven to be extremely detrimental to our nation. I am personally displeased both with the backhanded and duplicitous measures being taken by Senator Clinton to steal phantom delegates as well as the continued idiocy displayed by the incompetents and fools that comprise the state of Florida. At this point I think it would be perfectly fair for both the DNC and the Supreme Court to declare that the opinions of Florida are hereby null and void not just for this election, but in perpetuity, as they have proven time and again to be incapable of satisfying even the most rudimentary requirements of a democracy.