Vote for Obama -- My Top Ten Reasons

The polls are finally open in South Dakota -- time to put an exclamation point on the end of Senator Barack Obama's amazing rise to out-hustle once unstoppable Clinton political machine and win the Democratic nomination for President!

For all you undecided Dems out there (and met a number of them while canvassing yesterday), here's why I'd like you to join me in voting for Senator Barack Obama:

1. Obama makes the Corn Palace look even better.
2. Instead of pandering with short-term handouts like the gas-tax holiday (Bill was still trying to sell it Saturday), Obama has the guts to tell us that "plan" is just a gimmick that would hurt the economy and instead focuses on harder long-term solutions.
3. Candidate (and come Jan. 20, President) Obama will take the American conversation about race to a new and useful level. Having to wake up every morning and see a black President talking to them from the TV news will give a good healthy jolt to the worldviews of the racists among us. Obama will bring this country another Martin Luther King moment, not simply because he is black, but because he is a great empathizer and communicator (hm, just like Dr. King).
4. Madville Times readers prefer Obama 79% to 19%. And you know how smart Madville Times readers are.
   
5. SD Watch's readers prefer Obama 68% to 30%. They're pretty smart, too.
6. Obama has scared the radical theocrats at National Right to Life enough to get them to make phone calls to help Hillary. (Scaring radical theocrats is a sign of rationality and dedication to the Constitution.)
7. Obama was pushing rural issues and campaigning in South Dakota well before Clinton realized she needed to compete everywhere.
   
8. Obama's foreign policy is about real leadership, not just macho bull. He'll talk to the world, just as Nixon talked to China, just as Reagan talked to Gorbachev and the "evil empire."
9. He's got a lock on the Irish vote (come on, Barack O'Bama is clearly Gaelic.)
10. Obama's got game -- ask the kids in Indiana who got to shoot hoops with him!

Seriously, Barack Obama offers the kind of inspirational leadership and problem-solving that has me really fired up about a frontrunning candidate for the first time in my sordid voting history. In 1992, I wanted Perot to shake up the establishment. In 1996, I voted for Dole just because he wasn't Clinton. In 2000, I could live with GW Bush because I thought he represented my then Republican ideals, not because he himself seemed to be a great leader. In 2004, I supported Kucinich, then Nader, since I didn't see much hope for change from either of the main candidates.

I'm still a Kucinich man at heart, and it takes a lot to shake me free of my idealistic, some would say quixotic, positions. I'm not an easily led sheep. I could very easily have taken the position that the corporate special interests again have managed to push Kucinich's real message out of the arena and that there's no point in supporting anyone but Nader again.

But Obama has managed to appeal to my best hopes. He's gotten me to go knock on doors and stake my name here to his campaign. He's gotten me to let three Obama volunteers* camp out here at the Heidelberger estate. He's proven that a candidate can preach the gospel of real change, lead hard conversations, compete against the entrenched powers that be, and win.

There's my last pitch. Time to vote. Vote with pride -- vote for Obama.

By the way, good work, Granville, Jan, and David! Thanks for coming up from Iowa to work for change here in South Dakota!