An Obama Endorsement from Mrs. F

Mrs. F (my wife, who relishes her mysterious anonymity) is one of this blog's biggest fans (and luckily, one of my biggest fans, period), and she prefers to remain in the background to let me and Old Fogey (her Mom) bang out the posts. But occasionally, she'll get a bee in her bonnet and will write a little something that's just bursting to get out. This morning, she sent me the following (which, funnily enough, she wrote before seeing David Horsey's cartoon in this morning's news roundup), and I am more than happy to share it with ya'll:

I am a big fan of Barack Obama. I want Obama to be our next president. This isn’t an entirely rational desire because I do have concerns about his lack of experience. However, there are still two years before voting happens and I think he has the ability to respond to my concerns within that timeframe. I hope that he will use these two years well because I don’t think we can wait until 2016 for Obama to be “ready”.

What Obama brings to the race for president is his ability to speak sincerely and to say the things that Americans have been yearning to hear. No, he’s not perfect, but he appears to be an intelligent, compassionate, and disciplined public servant. He can speak to liberal and conservative Americans, secularist and religious Americans, rich and poor Americans, and people from many different walks of life. He speaks of hope and reminds us that we really do have the ability to confront our differences and make change happen. He is not afraid to speak about challenges. The American people do not need dumbed-down platitudes at this point in history. There are real challenges to confront, but the good news is that we have the capacity to do it if we can only find a leader to inspire us to make the necessary changes. After being astonished at the amount of change that George Bush has been able to accomplish in his six years as president, I no longer am doubtful that significant change can be affected by one president.

What I hope Obama will pursue in the next two years is establishing a platform that reflects the hope and holistic thinking that make his words powerful. I hope that he can use his obvious desire to bring Americans together to also bring issues together and develop creative policy solutions. I am no policy wonk, but I believe that policy for a sustainable America will solve many problems at once. For example, how about a program to train welfare recipients and people whose jobs have been outsourced to work in renewable energy technologies, coupled with healthy subsidy of the industry to fund research, development, and implementation. This would address the challenges of unemployment, outsourcing, global warming, and dependence on foreign sources of oil, while positioning the United States to be a global leader in a sustainable energy future.

That is a policy idea off the top of my head, and I’m hopeful that there are more and better ideas for addressing our challenges. What I want from Barack Obama is to see that he is putting real and creative policy proposals behind his inspiring speeches. Although his words are powerful, we have had little opportunity to see powerful action from him, and frankly he is not in a position to make sweeping changes as junior senator in a minority party. However, I want the assurance that he has creative ideas to address our challenges that he is so skillful at discussing. His lack of experience does not concern me if he can convince me that he will surround himself with a team of experienced experts intent on crafting a sustainable policy solution for our country.

Please Obama, use the next two years wisely.

Amen, Mrs. F!