The Meck Report/Blog: VOTING FOR OBAMA - Donald V. Watkins / Editor and Publisher - Voter News Network

VOTING FOR OBAMA

Donald V. Watkins
Editor and Publisher

© October 28, 2008

I voted for Barack Obama yesterday by absentee ballot. It was a surreal experience to finally cast my ballot for Obama for president.

I was a high school student in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1960s when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were enacted into law. As I filled out my ballot, I took a mental flight in history and reflected on my childhood experiences in Montgomery, with its segregated water fountains, restrooms, lunch counters, public schools, movie theatres, residential communities, and churches. It seemed unbelievable that 43 years after the Voting Rights Act, I was in the act of casting my ballot for Obama for president of the United States. I was taking an active role in a living miracle.

As I marked my ballot, I doubled checked it twice. I wanted to make no mistakes that would void my ballot--I vote in Florida and remember what happened to Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. I needed my vote to count. After all, I was not casting a vote for a single-issue protest candidate. No, I was voting for the presidential candidate with an eight point lead in all of the national polls one week before Election Day. I was voting for the likely next president of the United States, and he is black.

Only in America could this real life story occur. The greatness of this country has always been embodied in its exercise of reasoned and mature political judgment. The better and more qualified candidate for president is likely to win, and he happens to be black. Obama’s victory will be attributed, in large part, to the millions of white voters who voted their economic interests over any latent fears of black people quietly peddled by Republicans operatives supporting John McCain. Even more impressive is the fact that Obama never renounced or belittle his racial heritage on the road to the White House.

Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and other blacks who are apparently consumed with self-hatred should take notice of Obama’s refreshing example of comfortability with his blackness. The Clarence Thomases of America must now realize they no longer have to renounce their blackness to be fully accepted by white America. Hopefully, the successful Obama campaign has freed them from their self-imposed racial inferiority complex.

When I mailed my ballot, I realized I had witnessed two pivotal moments in American history. I saw the majority of white Americans embrace and support the changes inspired by the Civil Rights movement lead by Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1960s. Today, I am witnessing white America embrace and support the first true era of trans-racial national politics. In each case, reasoned political judgment triumphed over fear and hated. The first historic event was led by a preacher-leader. The second one is led by a truly inspiring and compassionate political leader.

When the votes are counted on Election Night, I believe Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. Americans deserve his style and direction of leadership. He will not be the black president. He will be the global leader of the free world. Like Martin Luther King, Jr., Obama is the right man in the right place at the right time. He will restore America’s prestige among the community of nations. He will make all Americans of interracial goodwill very proud.

I thank God for allowing me the opportunity to see and participate in this pivotal moment in American history where the selection of its next presidential is based on the important issues of the day and each candidate’s position on these issues. Race has finally taken a back seat to reason and our national interests.

www.VoterNewsNetwork.com

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Filed by The Meck - Oct 29, 2008 - 10:50a

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The Meck Report / Blog: IT'S TIME: AMERICA NEEDS OBAMA - Donald V. Watkins / Editor and Publisher - Voter News Network - Oct 20, 2008

IT'S TIME: AMERICA NEEDS OBAMA

Donald V. Watkins
Editor and Publisher

Voter News Network has closely monitored the paths to the White House traveled by Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama and Republican Party nominee John McCain. They have been as different as the men themselves. One leads to the future. The other travels back in time.

Obama has mastered the politics of empowering ordinary people. He has done it with record-breaking fundraising activities, overwhelming grassroots organizing initiatives, a skillful bypass of the Democratic Party’s old-guard establishment, and a much needed break from the politics and policies of the past. He has even transcended traditional racial barriers in American politics, and did so without selling his soul or compromising his values. Obama is America, and he epitomizes the nation’s future.

John McCain embodies the old Republican Party’s entrenched view of America and her role in the world. While he is a decent and honorable man on a personal level, the real John McCain was hijacked somewhere on the road to the White House by George Bush’s divisive political spin doctors. His campaign handlers have successfully saddled him with the burdens of raising irrelevant campaign issues--William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright-- at a time when too many Americans are focused on finding money for their next mortgage payment. McCain made a political U-turn from declaring in September that the nation’s economy was “fundamentally sound” to promoting himself as the champion of Joe the Plumber during the final presidential debate. McCain is the old guard with a Sarah Palin face. He’s comfortable with the past. His “maverick” political branding is not an acceptable substitute for the vision we desperately need in our next president.

It’s been eight long years since America had a highly educated street-smart leader in the White House. The nation has suffered during this period primarily because we did enjoy intellectual prowess in our president. George W. Bush masked his intellectual deficit with a variety of feel good flag waving ceremonies, arrogant and reckless military action, and bold inaction with our economy. In a real sense, Bush has been the classic do-nothing president. His chief agenda has been the advancement and protection of the special interests of the super rich--the crowd that implemented Ronald Reagan’s trickle down economic program. This is why we have a dead-end war in Iraq, why we now must use tax money to prop up failing Wall Street companies and their overpaid CEOs, and why we are still dependent on foreign oil barons.

John McCain is George W. Bush’s torchbearer for the failed policies of the past. He’s the new champion of the super rich (people who need staffers to brief them on how many homes they own), he’s constantly looking for the next war to fight, and neither he nor Palin has a clue about energy independence. Sadly, McCain offers us the political reincarnation of George W. Bush and his help-the-rich economic policies.

Enough is enough. It’s time. America needs Obama. He’s the real deal.

We need Obama’s brain-power and brain trust in the White House. As a nation, we have long, dark and difficult days ahead. Our economy has been wrecked by the very people McCain caters to in his everyday life. Obama understands pocketbook issues affecting Main Street. He has lived a working class life. He came from humbled beginnings, and was raised by a single mother and wonderful grandparents who possessed a wealth of solid core values. These values were successfully passed on to Obama and his family. It will be much harder for the martini-drinking, cigar-smoking super rich Wall Street groupies to seduce Obama or hoodwink his Administration for their narrow self-centered interests.

Obama is a leader who knows how to unite and inspire us. He is not a bitter and divisive man. He is thoughtful, respectful of others, and regularly practices the politics of inclusion. Obama’s very existence and fascinating personal story reflect what America can achieve by working together as one nation.

Sarah Palin, McCain’s running mate, mocked Obama’s vast experience as a community organizer. She and her campaign handlers truly did not know that community organizers are first responders in our neighborhoods and communities across America when bad things happen to good people. They see the adverse impact of an economic crisis in a community long before elected officials acknowledge worsening conditions. They live and work directly with everyday people to solve the chronic problems of joblessness, inadequate healthcare, failing schools, homelessness, crime and despair. They provide hope and inspiration where there is none. They are the nation’s frontline when our economy goes into a death-spiral. They sense earlier than others when the nation is going to war in the wrong place for the wrong reasons. They know first-hand the devastating costs of an unfair tax system. Thanks to Obama’s community organizing skills and efforts over a long period of time, we will likely have the heart and vision of a community organizer embedded in the next president of the United States.

Obama will end the war in Iraq, and do it in a responsible way. We can no longer use an in-your-face brute force approach to waging war. The cost to the nation in death, physical and psychological injuries, divisiveness at home and our leadership standing around the world is too great. We must lead by example, and talk to other leaders whether we like them or not.

We need Obama to balance the scales of justice in this nation. Our U.S. Supreme Court is tilted to the extreme right with scary conservative political agendas. The Justices involved want to take us back to a time when woman and minorities lacked basic constitutional protections in America. They are affable in their interpersonal skills and scholarly in their writings. However, they are very dedicated to their judicial mission--taking the nation back to an unpleasant past. Simply put, we don’t need anymore Clarence Thomases.

VNN is proud to endorse Barack Obama and support his candidacy for president. Our independent voters across America have been waiting for a national leader of Obama’s stature. He was worth the wait. It’s time. Independent voters know what we have to do on November 4. VNN will join Obama at the cross-roads of history on Election Day.

www.VoterNewsNetwork.com

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Filed by The Meck - Oct. 20, 2008 - 12:27a
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