Good Ol' John vs. the Big O

Conservatives will tell you that this is a piss-poor, superficial reason to vote for a political candidate. Superficial? Since when has race ever been superficial in this country? For many people it's a life or death issue.

Brown people have been so underrepresented and generally so poorly treated in this country that it's high time we had a president of the non-pasty variety. A side benefit of a brown president could be a real path to better race relations in the U.S. And since brown people will probably soon overtake white people in the U.S. population, maybe we should all start becoming accustomed to seeing more brown folks in positions of power.

His growing up life wasn't perfect

Since the dawn of this great nation, there have been basically three growing-up stories for our presidents: 1) Poor, but hard-working white boy pulls himself up by his bootstraps and rises to a position of power; 2) Privileged rich white boy uses his connections to rise to a position of power; 3) Hard-working rich white boy pulls himself up by his bootstraps and uses his connections to rise to a position of power.

Blah, blah, blah, ad infinitum. Enough of that boring crap, already. Now, finally, we have Obama, whose growing up life sounds like a real American. It's a fascinating mish-mash of divorce, poverty, racism, separation from his parents and rearing by a grandparent. His father was a Kenyan goat-herder and his mother was a poor white girl from Nowhere, Kansas, USA, for criminy's sake. How much more real and substantive can you get?

His middle name is Hussein

Remember when everyone knew that Michael Dukakis didn't have a prayer to become president because his name was "Dukakis"- There are presidential names and there are non-presidential names. John Adams. Jimmy Carter. Theodore Roosevelt. Abraham Lincoln. These are presidential names.

Barack Obama is not a presidential name, yet this guy has a chance to be the president. What's even better is that his middle name is identical to the last name of the evil dictator that this country had put to death two years ago. Yet somehow, beyond all reason, for the first time in our history, despite the fact that so many people in this country care about nothing more than the breaking news on the E! Entertainment Network, people are looking beyond Barack Obama's name and to the man himself. How freaking awesome is that?

Don't be fooled by conservatives who tell you Obama stands for nothing but change. Go to www.barackobama.com and read his proposed policies for yourself.

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