barack obama for president...

i am so pleased that senator obama has won the iowa caucuses tonight. last night i was at my first sf obama voulnteer meeting and in the coming weeks i will be phone banking a few nights a week in preparation for the february 5th california primary.

i am supporting barack obama for many reasons. i believe, first and foremost, that he is the most intelligent of all the candidates, and frankly i'd like to see a little intellectualism in the oval office [not to mention a person who can use things like proper sentence structure and multi- syllabic words].

i believe that he will be, to borrow a phrase, "the new way forward" for a country coming off the heels of what will be eight hugely disastrous years of bush imperialism.

i believe, in fact, that he is the anti- bush, and that the need to move beyond bush, and all he represents, is beyond critical. for further analysis of this, and more, i implore you to read this article from the atlantic monthly by andrew sullivan.

my support for senator obama began, let's be honest, with the war in iraq. it pains me deeply that both senators clinton and edwards voted to authorize the iraq war resolution in 2002, no matter what they now say about it. but senator obama displayed his judgment and didn't play follow- the- jingo, his measured position the same as my own: "i don't oppose all wars. what i am opposed to is a dumb war. what i am opposed to is a rash war..." [october 2002].

please see this article by frank rich, one of my heroes, for a good perspective on everything else: the experience argument. it doesn't mean as much as some would have you think, and nothing i could say about it could better what mr. rich has already said in the aforementioned article. again, please take a look.

barack obama for president 2008. thanks for caring.

~lee.