What spoke the most to me

Posted by admin on Jan 8, 2008 in Blog, My thoughts | 0 comments

Now that the NH primary is over, the votes are nearly all tallied, and Hillary Clinton has been projected the winner, I have dutifully listened to each of the top three candidates’ night-ending speeches closely. It’s not my turn to vote yet, but it’s very much time I start paying attention. The candidates have had some time to sharpen their teeth, and sharpen their messages.

Who spoke to me? John Edwards. Hands-down, John Edwards. Which was a huge surprise, because I have consistently been an Obama supporter. But John Edwards stole the show, and stole my heart tonight. He left me feeling important and empowered tonight, me, and he doesn’t even know that I exist! He spoke to me.

And yet, there remains something about Edwards which I find unelectable. Oh, how I hate to say that. I want to vote for Edwards. I really, really want to vote for this guy, because he is compassionate and empathetic. John Edwards is my kind of guy. Ordinary, regular, smart as a whip, a commensurate business man, and yet he understands the potholes in my life. Incredible.

But I can’t vote for him. He’s missing an element that is absolutely essential for me to vote for him. I can’t put my finger on what the problem is. I’ve previously said it is lack of leadership (at least in how he comes across) yet I didn’t see that tonight? He came across as a great leader tonight… He united us to his ideas and led the way! It’s not leadership. It’s something else. And it’s frustrating.

So I am left to choose between Hillary and Barack. Despite the CNN pundits’ allegations of “candor” at Hillary’s speech, I found her disjointed, unparticipatory, and uninspired… she said all the right words, but it came out flat as cardboard. She could have really livened it up, made it sound like she believed in the words she was saying. Instead it came off to me as a written speech that she was bored with and was struggling to slog through with a generic lilt.

I’ve heard guys who sounded far more excited about sewage technology.

That means, predictably, Obama is my candidate tonight. Not because he is the one left over :) the fact is I have purposely mentioned him last here, just to build this entry to a proper crescendo and conclusion. Unlike Hillary, Barack Obama actually seemed to believe what he was talking about. He actually seemed to get it, in terms of big picture and ordinary peoples’ miscrspheres. He also made my heart swell with pride in our nation, in our democratic process, in our being a nation of opportunities. I felt excited at the prospect of hope and vision.

“… in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” — Barack Obama, 01/08/2008

Amen to that!

So there is my quote of the day, my thought of the evening… “there is nothing false about hope.” He gets it. There is always a purity about hope. If only I could have more of that purity and light in my life more often — I tell you what, it’d do good things. Very good things.

On to South Carolina. :)