Earlier this week, I had a family member include me on a mass distribution list of an email titled “Obama and Abortion.” The email took a quote from his appearance at Rick Warren’s forum about when life begins and used that as the prevailing reason not to support Obama for president.
I don’t understand single-issue voters. However, I know there are lots of people who vote Republican strictly because they disagree with Democrats’ positions on abortion, gay rights, gun control, etc. Knowing that, I think this was the most well-crafted part of Obama’s speech last night:
We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This, too, is part of America’s promise — the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.
I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that’s to be expected. Because if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.
You make a big election about small things.
I also believe that patriotism isn’t partisan and it’s low-ball politics to paint someone as unpatriotic just because they question what our leaders are doing. We live in a democracy — we’re supposed to ask questions and get answers and make changes when leaders aren’t acting in the country’s best interest. Obama — who like many Americans does support the troops but doesn’t agree with the way Bush has administered the war — successfully took politics out of patriotism:
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.
From a PR person who spends a lot of time writing every day, that speech was brilliantly crafted. And, as a regular voter, I don’t understand how anyone watching that speech (or analyzing policy differences between the two candidates) last night could possibly think that John McCain is a better option.