No surprise here.....

I'm voting for Obama. In my introduction post, I alluded to the fact that one had to be a card carrying Democrat to survive in my family, however, in 2000, I actually supported McCain. At that time, he WAS a maverick and appeared to walk beyond partisan politics to do what he thought was right. I watched him be persecuted and then sickeningly tow the party line there after. I lost a lot of respect for him, even though he still occasionally stepped outside party politics to do the right thing.

Why Obama, why now? It's time - for something different. For too long, we've seen what inside the beltway attitudes have done to this country. Now, I am not naive enough to think a president alone can change things. There has to be more sweeping change in the House and the Senate - we are stuck with such a close margin that no one should be surprised that not much has been done since the mid-term elections. The president can, however, set a precedent with policy and thought leadership. Our current president has done this, it's just that he's made a horrible mess of it all.

Those that claim that Obama lacks experience, think Lincoln. He too, had relatively little legislative experience prior to his presidency, but he had courage in spades and vision - and became one of our greatest, if not our greatest president. It takes vision, and I think Obama has that.

I'm lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to be in the 5% that won't see a tax break if Obama's economic policies are put into place. That's okay - it's worth it to see a sense of dignity come back to this country, to rethink our place in the world and get that 95% out from behind the 8 ball. We need some sort of sanity restored to our financial markets and a timeframe to get the US out of Iraq. It's time for us to stop being the policemen of the world and to pay attention to what we've ignored at home for too long.