I’m voting for Obama primarily because I believe that the wealthy aren’t paying their fair share of taxes. I’m sitting firmly in the middle class and when they released Cindy McCain’s 2007 taxes last week I compared rates and found that I’m paying a higher percentage than she is. Warren Buffet is paying a significantly lower tax rate.

Having said that I think that the middle class shouldn’t just be given a tax break. We should have to earn it. We should be required to reduce our consumption of petroleum in order to pay lower taxes. This will produce a demand for new technology that will create high-paying jobs. I’m not going to attempt to dictate how best to implement this idea, but I’m hoping this post will start a discussion. (full disclosure: I’m an Engineer and an increase in the demand for energy efficient or alternative energy tech would likely drive job growth in my field)

From everything that I’ve seen, heard, and read, it is obvious to me that Obama “gets it.” He has a deep understand of, and commitment to, what is really important. He will bring this country together by focusing on what we can agree upon, and he will move us forward by reminding us that what unites us is so much more important that what could divide us. That is what a true leader does: bring people together behind a common cause to achieve a common goal. It’s easy for all of us to forget that, with the example of divisiveness we’ve had over the past eight years. Obama will lead this great country to the next level of greatness!!

I assume that most of you do not need to hear my reasons for supporting Barack Obama to have many very good ones of your own.  But as an old campaigner, let me post on a different topic:  why it will take a landslide.

If we could trust that this election would be unlike those we have endured since 2000, that voter access would be fair and reasonable, and that votes would be accurately and honestly counted, then Obama supporters could take at least as much confidence as hope into the stretch drive.  The numbers are that good.  But although a real landslide is in the making, the unfortunate (and inconvenient) truth is that for Obama to win at all, a landslide is what it will take.

Republican voter suppression tactics have disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of legitimately qualified voters in past elections, and more of the same is happening right now.  Under the oxymoronic Help America Vote Act, many of these disenrollment practices have metastasized.  For just one recent example, 30,000 newly registered folks in swing state Colorado have been purged based on a mail confirmation tactic that almost certainly violates the Voting Rights Act.

There are many ways voter participation is suppressed, but one of the most effective is the simple technique of ensuring that the waiting lines at the polls are so long that many get discouraged and give up.  With turnout in the most democratic precincts expected to be at record levels, the delays caused by too few polling places, unreliable machines, ill-trained poll workers, and swarms of Republican operatives challenging as many voters as they can will be daunting.

Not only do we have to overcome this kind of suppression, we also have to overwhelm the fraudulent  counts generated by paperless voting machines across the country.  The evidence (for example, the pro Bush disparity between exit polls and the machine count in every key swing state in 2004) that the last presidential election was stolen is overwhelming.  Clearly, the opportunity and motive to perpetrate the same crime is no less today.  Already, early voting accounts from places like West Virginia testify to touch screens flipping intended votes away from Obama and into McCain or third party candidates.

So, without even factoring in the Bradley effect of racism hidden within polling data (which a consensus of pollsters might put at about 6%), we have our work still very much cut out for us if we are to elect the Obama/Biden ticket.

But there are other good reasons to keep on working to do all that we can.  We are movement building, and regardless of outcome, that will stand us in good stead.  In a worst case scenario, we suffer another fraudulent election outcome and “lose.”  In that case, an overwhelmingly strong progressive movement will be an utter necessity to give us any chance to set things right.  The bigger the pre-election polls and election day exit polling margins for Obama, the more obvious the theft.  And the bigger the outcry for investigations, recounts and, if need be, a new election, the better our chances to rectify the result.

In a best case scenario, we win.  But in order to effect real change, more than holding the White House is needed.  We need to win the post election interpretation of the result, that it was a decisive rejection of the Republican ideology of war, plutocracy and tyranny, and a mandate for peaceful relations, progressive tax and budget priorities and the rule of law.  We need to press the Congress and the White House to adopt the policies that benefit our families and our future.  And we will need to carry this work forward while confronted with the same impediments to progress that have been ascendant for a generation.

All of this will be difficult.  It just might take a landslide.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

I am for Obama because he represents the America that America used to aspire to be, that we all aspire to live in.  The country that lead by example, not by bullying.  The country that prosecuted people for water boarding, not gave them medals.  The country that uses military force as a last option, not one that lies to its own people and the world to justify actions that should never have been taken.  The country where, once you’ve risked your life for it, you’re treated with the care and dignity that shows how much we appreciate what you did in our name.  The country where our leader is somebody who we admire for his intelligence, not for his ability to clear brush and be “one of the guys”.

I’m also for Obama because it shows that we’ve come closer to our aspirations of a country of racial equality.

Back in early 2004, I heard about Obama for the first time when he began his campaign for U.S. Senate. Not knowing much about him, I decided to read his memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, which I’m holding in my hand in the picture. If you haven’t read this book already, read it. If you think you know Obama already and haven’t read it, read it!  It was after reading this memoir that I realized Barack Obama would be a man who could change our country. For the first time in my life, I felt connected to a political figure through his crosscultural experience with race, community and desire to bridge the differences among people. His book affected me so deeply that it motivated me to volunteer for his campaign as a precinct committeeperson and pollwatcher in Wheaton, IL in 2004. I walked my neighborhood door-to-door making sure people were registered to vote, giving information about the Democratic candidates and answering any fears about the whole election process. This picture was exactly four years ago in October. I remember finding out Obama was coming to Wheaton at about 2:00 in the afternoon (when you volunteer, you are kept in the loop about these things). I took my son out of school early that day. When I picked him up, I told him, “Owen, I’m taking you out of school today because I want you to meet a man who will one day be our U.S. senator from Illinois and some years after that, our president of the United States, our first Black president!” That was a historic day for Owen and me. This is a historic time for us now.  Be part of making history, of producing change in this country. Please vote on November 4.

Pennsylvania Canvassers

Pennsylvania is a swing state, so that’s where we New Yorkers went.

On our canvass there were two amazing high school kids who spent the day with us talking to undecided voters. They can’t vote yet but they thought they could make a difference by talking to people. And they did. We saw it happen. People on the fence or reluctantly voting Obama got inspired, signed up to volunteer,committed to vote and to help get out the vote. The kids didn’t know all the issues, that’s not necessary. But they talked to people and connected and had fun, too. People are deeply affected to see someone who cares, and cares what they think.

Also canvassing were some non-citizens who were likewise trying to make a difference in the only way they can. That was pretty cool. The stakes are high; the whole world knows this. Imagine a foreign person walking up to the door of an undecided, uniformed, or uninterested voter, trying to convince them to use their vote! Ah America! Remember our revolution? We were going to do better than those Europeans! Remember?! Remember pledging our “lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” for the right to self-determination? Remember the long struggle to spread that right to women and African-Americans?

I drove down with some kids in their twenties who were more passionate, dedicated, and informed than anyone I’ve met in a long time, of any age. They too were an inspiration to me. They’re also silly as hell, so try not to get stuck in a car with them. (I kid! I love your love of 80s pop music!) We shot this video and the Philly office edited it.

So all these people, they are why I am for Obama.

Someone recently reminded me that in the shift to identity politics, self-interested and single-issue voting, we’ve forgotten that we are meant to support not just those who represents OUR interests, viewpoints, and goals, but those who we think will best represent the country as a whole. (Thanks Lucas.)

None of these people had to be reminded of that, and they selflessly gave up a Saturday, and more, to try to spread that message, that Obama is that candidate who will do the best job for the whole country and all of the individuals in it.

Except the jerks.

Voting is great, but it’s not enough. Please get involved! Vote plus!