Money Quotes

From two of my favourite SC Bloggers....

NVB

He doesn’t speak down to us, and he does a minimum of pandering for a politician. He trusts us to get it. He speaks to us as adults. And he may, in the end, be wrong about our worthiness. Maybe his assumptions are off. Maybe making bogey men of issues and people, the finely honed craft of the modern Republican Party, is what works.

But I refuse to believe that yet.

So when Obama went into black churches and talked about fathers’ responsibilities, and he went into straight crowds to talk about our gay brothers and sisters, and when he gave a speech on race in which he talked about the legitimacy of white resentment, the political bravery was remarkable. It was the antidote to all the years of pure political gamesmanship, which, in the end, have yielded just about what we deserve.

It’s not that he doesn’t recognize that some political games must be played. It’s that he believes that those games should be minimized for a greater good.

Waldo

I've been all over the map as a voter for presidents- Democrats, Republicans, and John Anderson in 1980, a vote in which I still take pride. Some years the totality of the issues determined my vote. Some years I voted for candidate with whom I disagreed on some things, but thought better than the other. But over the last eight years my question on voting for a president has become more focused, and is the test I will use in November: which candidate will enter office determined to make my life worse, and my legal standing less, than my next-door neighbor?

By that measure Senator Obama is the clear choice. He may not succeed in what he wants to do. He may not accomplish all I want him to for my self-interest. But I know he will not walk into the oval office considering me a second or third class citizen surrounded by aides pressing him to reduce me even further.

Which is why I was so pleased to watch Senator Obama's speech in St.Paul last night. It has taken the improbable elevation of an African American presidential candidate to say what more white middle aged men than I can count cannot, and could not- that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of guaranteed to every single American. Even me.

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