Thursday Thirteen #110

Thursday

Thirteen

Thirteen Reasons Why I Support Barack Obama

1. He cares about people more than ideas--
2. But he articulates ideas well,
3. Without either patronizing or pandering to people, by which I mean he neither talks down to us nor tells us only what he thinks we want to hear,
4. Which is an essential skill of an effective leader.
5. That skill in communicating combined with the range of his intellectual curiosity and
6. The rigor of an intellect trained by an intensive education
7. Will give him the ability to seek out whatever information or advice that any unforeseen circumstance requires.
8. This ability was tested, honed and displayed from 1985 to the present as he took leadership roles as a community organizer in Chicago, as editor of the Harvard Law Review, as a civil rights lawyer, as a Professor at Chicago University Law School, as Illinois State Senator and then U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois--
9. And most recently during the crisis with the economy when his leadership and problem solving manner was manifest before the entire nation as he displayed a calm demeanor while going about gathering the information and advice he needed
10. And then proceeded to work in a reasoned and deliberate fashion in cooperation with his colleagues on both sides of the aisle
11. While simultaneously running his campaign on an even keel which evidences his ability to multitask
12. And as well his ability to organize, to delegate and to inspire people to work together toward a common goal.
13. Most of all he had the audacity to hope when I had begun to despair and he was able to show me how his hope was rooted in his personal knowledge of the hearts of the American people based on the many thousands of them he has met and listened to, worked with and for, over the last two decades and he has proved to me that the possibility of cooperation, the power of local community and the willingness of a majority in our pluralistic republic to pull for the common dreams of all and work together in a spirit of respect, while holding differing opinions on some issues, for the commonweal is still viable.

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