there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers......

[FrenchieCat]

For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga.
A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief — I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper — that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? -Barack Obama, 2004 Convention speech
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-07-27-obama-speech-text_x.htm

[fasttense]

1. This Democratic Primary is about two things.

It is about a man who has a dream

and about a woman who has a plan.

Dreams are good things but they must be tempered by reality.

Nelson Mandela, after ending apartheid, gave away the purse strings of the country to his white masters. Ever since, the black majority population has lived in the same squalor and abject poverty they had known while under the rule of their white masters. His policy of reconciliation gave away the power of the country to the white masters and did nothing to hold them accountable. The country continues to pay the bills and debts for whites, while the majority population live in squalor.

It does no good to have a dream unless you are savvy enough to know how to negotiate. Obama claims he has been through the fire because he has Hillary and the Clinton machine attacking him in the primaries. He has no idea how much worse it is going to get when he runs against the repukes. He has no idea that the little the Clintons are doing to attack him is one tenth of what the repukes will do to him.

His policy of reconciliation is popular but it is very dangerous too.

I like Obama. He is inspiring but I want a tough seasoned fighter when we finally grasp the reins of power. I think the often cited comparisons of JFK and MLK are good surface descriptions. The problems is when you scratch the surface the comparisons don't hold water. JFK and MLK had very specific well developed plans and were tough as bull dogs when it came to fighting and negotiations. Neither of them touted reconciliation. They knew they had to fight first and then negotiate from a position of power, before anything could get done.

I think many republicans are attracted to Obama where they are not to Hillary because Obama is offering them the olive branch. The problem is that peace is being offered before the fight is finished. The republicans take it to mean that they wont be held accountable or responsible for the mess they created. And they may be right.