Response to a friend's post

on the Democrats and how we need to get tougher:


I'm not sure where I stand on how much of a hard-ass Barack needs to be to win this although my husband and I were talking about it last night and he totally agrees that because the Dems always take the high road, we lose, and we need to play as dirty as the Republicans do to win this.

I'm a silly idealist hippie who believes truth and justice will prevail -- but I guess the past eight years show how naive I really am. The above poster brings up a good point in the "We'd rather be right than win" but unfortunately AND fortunately that's what separates us from the more conservative Republicans who too often, it seems, look at politics as if it was a football game and my team vs. their team. Obama is trying to change that and Ray is right -- McCain's basically plagiarized everything Obama said in his acceptance speech.

Let me say in Obama's offense: maybe that "pig with lipstick" was scripted in and he has begun to play rough. Someone even suggested his saying "old fish wrapped in paper" was a reference to McCain.

Palin makes me want to vomit. She is everything I'm against.
I wondered if that ticket wins, should I just take a bottle of something (cyanide perhaps?) and end it all now?

But seriously - for all those who say Obama can't/won't? Please, be quiet. The universe hears you. Say out loud and often this instead: Barack will win. We will rise up together and he will win. I have waited my entire life for this change. Since the third grade when I was told not to tell my grandma that the boy I had a crush on was "colored" I've been waiting. Since the tenth grade when I was forbidden to see Danny. Since my 18th birthday when I was disowned for dating and later marrying Jay. No, I wasn't a white girl looking for attention. I had grown up with these people and never saw the division until I was told to. By then it was too late, I'd already decided I was the type of person who would always judge people based on their actions and deeds, not their intentions or the faces they put on or the skin or gender they were born into.

Here's my hope: that all the dems will rise up together, that the independents will, for once, help instead of hinder us (and maybe one day we can pay them back in deed/action by actually giving them a voice, as well the dems and repubs), that people will vote on issues rather than race/gender (although I DO understand both the need for women and for black men to break ceilings, believe me) and that finally -- and this may sound like an odd one -- but I hope that all those people who are husbands and wives or in relationships or who are sons and daughters and sisters and brothers -- all those people who feel like they can't vote for a black president based on skin color and social pressures from their immediate sources -- go ahead, shake your heads no, no, no....lie to everyone in your family if you have to...say you'll never vote Barama. But then, once inside that little curtain, go ahead. Say to yourself "They'll never know" and vote for who you know can lead this country. Have some courage. Ask: What if?

Oh, and how to reach those who don't care? That's always been the greatest challenge a teacher faces...

Who knows, maybe even this little bit we do, will help.