Barack Obama

Like just about everyone else who has spent any time with him, I was backing Joe Biden to be our next President of the United States. I still think that if he had the money of some of the other candidates in Iowa, he would have received enough votes to be barnstorming through New Hampshire right now. He was uniquely prepared to be the next President. But as you know, Joe gracefully bowed out of the Presidential race the night that the Iowa caucuses were over.

I am supporting Barack Obama to become our party’s nominee in 2008. All four of the remaining Democratic candidates would be great Presidents—nobody cared enough to ask me four years ago, but if they had I would have told them I was supporting John Edwards—but I think Senator Obama’s thoughtfulness, candor, charisma, and ability to bring people together will make him a great candidate and an even greater President. I thought his speech after the Iowa caucus results came in was the best I have seen a candidate give since Mario Cuomo’s speech to the Democratic Convention over 20 years ago.

My son Adam is making speeches now—he imperiously shuffles his Sesame Street cards around, announces that he is going to make a speech, clears his throat, yells out “Ladies and Gentlemen!”, and then starts proclaiming some nonsense about the Wiggles and waits for applause. But he sat with me and watched a tape of Senator Obama’s speech after the caucuses, and now he has occasionally changed his intro to “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am Barack Obama!”. When Adam turns twelve and President Obama is finishing his second term in office, I am going to tell him that story—I am not sure what it says about our country or Barack Obama, but I am pretty sure that it is something good.