Why I'm voting for Obama

I am a person who researches things thoroughly before I make up my mind. If you followed my column in the Pensacola News Journal you will know that I follow leads, research extensively and make sure there is documentation for everything that I write about and pass along. So it is with the Presidential Election of 2008.

There are people on the political right who want you to think that Obama is unqualified, or worse that he is lying to us, and has connections with all sort of nefarious people. This group relies on half truths and innuendo. They rely on slurs and character assassination.

In one of John McCain’s rallies he was confronted by a woman who called Obama an Arab implying that he was connected to terrorists. McCain retorted, in disgust for the women’s disinformation, and replied that Obama was an honorable man. McCain thinks Obama is an honorable man but his campaign doesn’t represent this. How come?

Perhaps it is because his campaign is being run by the same neo-conservatives that lied to us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Perhaps it is because his campaign is being run by the same people who wanted Clinton to attack Iraq during his administration and finally found a way to do it, after 911. This is the same group of people who consistently try to connect Iraq to 911 which has been refuted even by Al-Qaeda.

McCain is not Bush; that is true. McCain is a dignified, honorable man and is not being allowed to run the campaign that he wants to run. Instead his campaign is being run by the same people that run Bush’s Whitehouse. This is why this is a continuation of the Bush administration and its policies; no matter how much of a maverick McCain has been in the past. If McCain can’t even run his own campaign what hope is there that he will run his own administration.

On the other side, when I look at Barack Obama, I don’t see a black man, I see a Harvard graduate who was editor of the Harvard Law Review. I see a man who has been called by his peers, both Republican and Democratic alike – an expert in Constitutional Law. I see someone who speaks of bringing this country together instead of relying on divisiveness and conflict.

Obama is a literate, educated, intelligent man who can be a force in bringing this country together again to the glory that we once were. The United States once held the moral high ground and was supported by the other countries of the world. There is clear reason why we have lost the support of our allies and now remain “the biggest bully on the block.” Through Obama, I look to an America that can regain the respect of the rest of the world, and not its distain.

Go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/view/ and view the documentary on Obama and McCain. They are both honorable men – forget the slurs and misinformation. Forget the sound-bites and divisiveness. Then vote for the person whom you choose based on facts, not innuendo, because you believe in their policies and not because you have been swayed by lies and half-truths.