Obama

I'm skeptical about any politician's motives, especially when that politician wants to be president. That said, I like what I have read about Barack Obama. His background may be a bit short on the political side (which is probably a good thing), but it is full of dedication to helping others. He seems genuine, and I would like to think that it is more than just political staging.

Here are a couple of quotes from his website...

On Families:

Strong families raise successful children and keep communities together. While Senator Obama does not believe that we can simply legislate healthy families, good parenting skills or economic success, he does believe we can eliminate roadblocks that parents face and provide tools to help them succeed.

On Health Care:

"In the 2008 campaign, affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how. We have the ideas, we have the resources, and we will have universal health care in this country by the end of the next president's first term."

A friend sent me a copy of a New York Times editorial by Thomas Friedman. You have to subscribe to the NY Times to read it, so if you are interested, send me an email or something and I'll send you a copy. Friedman starts the editorial by talking about his wife's visit to a school house in Kenya. On the wall of the school house is a poster of Senator Obama and his wife. He also talks about pictures of Senator Obama at the offices of public officials in Kenya.

Friedman then writes, "Yes, Mr. Obama’s father was Kenyan, but nevertheless, that poster and those pictures got me thinking: when was the last time you saw a U.S. president or politician being held up as a role model abroad? It’s been awhile. And that got me thinking about Mr. Obama. It seems to me that the strongest case one could make for an Obama presidency right now is rarely articulated: it is his potential to repair the broken relationship between America and the world."

The ability to repair broken relationships with the rest of the world just might be a good quality for the next president to have...