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Obama calls on us to help change the nation
By Bruce Mulkey
Asheville Citizen-Times, April 29, 2008
In early 2007, I spent a few days in Nashville with Al Gore, being trained to present his global warming slide show. Contrary to the mainstream media’s portrayal of the former vice president, Gore proved to be warm, witty and engaging. At the end of the training, I thanked him for what he was doing, wondering (but not asking) if he planned to run for president again. For a few months thereafter I hung on every rumor of Gore’s candidacy until, alas, it became obvious that he did not intend to enter the race.
So I shifted my support to John Edwards and made a modest contribution to his campaign. I watched the results of the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses hoping for an Edwards upset but gained a revelation instead: Barack Obama’s eloquent and inspiring victory speech compelled me to switch candidates again.
Since, however, Obama was a relative newcomer to the national political scene, I had questions about him and his bid for the Democratic nomination for president. Who was this guy? What was his vision for America? How was he different from any of the other candidates running for president?
So my wife Shonnie and I did some research on the Internet. Then we downloaded both of Obama’s books — Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope — and spent evenings listening to them and learning more about this man.
Who is Barack Obama?
In doing so, we learned that Obama was raised by his single mother and his grandparents. After graduation from Harvard Law School, rather than taking a prestigious position at a high-powered law firm, he went to Chicago to head a voter registration drive.
He ran grassroots, citizen-funded campaigns for the Illinois State Senate and the U.S. Senate and has gained as much legislative experience as Abraham Lincoln had when the Great Emancipator ran for president. He has co-sponsored legislation that will help provide cleaner air and fight methamphetamines, both serious issues in Western North Carolina.
He wants to do more than end the Iraq war — he wants to end the mindset that got us into this war in the first place. Among Obama’s values are personal responsibility, self-reliance, empathy, authenticity, honesty, thrift, fairness and love of country. He is a servant leader who calls on us to be leaders in our own right. Finally, we learned that he is a committed, faithful husband and a devoted father whose personal and political decisions are informed by his deep Christian faith.
So I decided to get to work for Obama. Before I began volunteering locally for his campaign, I’d heard some referring to it as a personality cult, a throng of naïve, youthful Obamaniacs who had drunk the Kool-Aid and blindly followed this political pied piper wherever he led. My personal experience is quite the contrary.
Hundreds of self-organized volunteers of diverse ethnic origins, ages, sexual orientations, socio-economic backgrounds, professions, religious faiths and even political parties have joined together in Asheville and throughout Western North Carolina to reclaim the political power that is our birthright. We have united to help Barack Obama win the May 6 North Carolina Democratic Primary and move him one step closer to becoming president of the United States.
The right leader at this crucial time
It may still be business as usual for many Washington insiders. But here in Asheville and across the land, a powerful movement of energized citizen-activists has arisen. Barack Obama has rekindled the hopeful vision for our nation that lies deep within each of us.
He has called on us to make that vision a reality, to become personally accountable, to help our country correct the course it is on.
With your support, we will seize this opportunity to bring about fundamental change in our nation’s capital. We will rebuild our schools and infrastructure, restore our constitutional rights, bring our troops home from Iraq, curb global warming, make health care available to all and restructure our economy. Together we will transform America into the country it’s meant to be.
We are the ones. Now is the time. Please join us.
