Boulder Belt Endorses Obama

I am taking an interest in the Ohio primary coming up next Tuesday. I believe I will be voting for Barak Obama. Unless I register as a republican to vote for Ron Paul and a whole host of local officials. I can make this choice when I go to the evangelical church where I get to vote. Whatever happened to the separation of church and state? Why do they not use schools, which are government buildings for polling places in Preble County instead of churches?

I remember when I was a kid that periodically the gym would be transformed into a polling place and we kids got out of gym class (yay!!!). It was even better that the gym/polling place housed the precincts that my elder family members used so I would get to see my mother, father and step mother at school. this experience helped to turn me into a life long dedicated voter. I wonder if putting polling places into churches away from where the kids can see democracy in action is teaching them the patriotic duty of voting is simply unimportant?

Okay, So I really like Barak Obama. He is the only person running who is offering up hope. I do not care about his lack of experience (who really has such experience except a sitting president). I like the fact he is young (just 2 years older than me) that he has traveled all over the world, that he has a religious background that includes Islam, That he is well read and incredibly intelligent (what a nice change from the moron we have as leader currently), that he has chosen to be a civil servant instead of working for a corporation for decades and than getting into politics. Most of all he is lighting a real fire and getting the masses excited. The guy is a natural born leader and I believe he will lead us out of the mess that has been made over the past 7 years.

On the issues. I agree with about 75% of his platform. But in my years as a political pundit I have come to realize that most of the platforms of any national candidate is just so much rhetoric. They can say what they want but when elected they have to work with several thousand people and most of the promises are either broken outright or changed so much they are no longer recognizable. Also, the president does not have nearly the power most people think he does. Yes he gets veto power but he does not write laws. Yes he can appoint all sorts of people to all sorts of positions but generally once appointed the POTUS has very little control over what they do. The president either gets blamed or given credit for the USA's economic standing and yet has virtually zero control over our economics other than maybe appointing people to the federal reserve or something.

So it comes down to the president being a figurehead who can either choose to lead or not. Bush has chosen not to be a great leader and what leading he does he does through fear. I think Obama is a great leader and will inspire us all with a message of hope and an erosion of fear.

Oh, and I am enjoying the fear he is instilling in the evangelical right. If they fear him than, in my mind, he has got to be good for the country