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Dear President-Elect Obama:
I know you may never see this mail, as I am sure you have received thousands, but I felt so strongly, the desire to tell you how excited I am with your election, I have decided to send it to you anyway. I was a Hillary Clinton supporter until March, when my wife and I returned from Indonesia. We have Indonesia in common, in that over the last 20 years I have spent perhaps 4 in the country. I read your book, The Audacity of Hope this past winter and knew you were a special person, but thought you too new on the political scene to win-----boy was I wrong. Mr. President-Elect, at 66 I never thought I would see this day and I cannot tell you how proud I am of you and our country. Since I am old and white, I can use Michelle’s expression and say, “IT is the first time I have been this proud of my country”.
I had the pleasure of being asked by the campaign to come to Florida the last weekend before the election, and worked the phones for a day and then canvassed a very poor part of town in Ft. Walton. I have been concerned for years about “who speaks for these people”, and that day I saw hope in faces that made me believe they felt they now had someone. Talking to the young veteran that was your area representative, made me realize how dedicated to the campaign people were, for he had a broken tooth and obviously was in pain, but he kept on going. Justin Ford had his tooth pulled Sat. night and I met him Sunday morning for another day. I returned home Saturday night, excited, nervous the election would be stolen but more than anything, a feeling that we, the people, because of you could get our country back. I cannot possibly put in words the feelings I had on the night of November 4th. There we were, tears rolling down our cheeks, unable to speak, fearing we would destroy the moment and upon awaking the next morning, my wife smiled at me and said, “is it really true”?
I know the work has just begun, and never have I seen anything like the problems we face, but I fully believe you and your administration will be up to the task. I do know, that on January 20th I will most probably cry once again but I will not be alone.
Respectfully,
Virginius “Gin” Arnold
