This is how a leader sounds. This is what leadership looks like. Not racist slandering, not fear-mongering, not school-yard insults but straight talking, honest patriotism.
The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America – they have served the United States of America.
So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.
The coming Republican convention is the last chance the GOP has to win back (note, not “keep”) the thousands of us who are taking our votes elsewhere after the abysmal failure of this current administration and the hijacking of the Republican party by bigots and charlatans.
I’m sick of being labeled an elite because I have an education. I’m tired of the implication that because I see failure and corruption in the Iraq war, I’m not patriotic. And I will no longer support a party that uses religion and fear to bully people into the extremes on issues. We don’t live in the extremes; we live in the gray middles and its time for a leader who not only acknowledges the reality of the American experience, but is able to improve it.
I’m not voting for a saint or a preacher or a hero; I’m voting for the person who can best lead this country to a better tomorrow.
I’m voting for Barack Obama.