Elections

The Real Uniter

This is my last love letter to Obama for the day.

My uncle lives in Indiana. He's nearly 70. He's an independent who has always voted for Republicans. This year, he's voting for Barack Obama.

Obama has a well documented history of bringing people with various points of view over to his table. That's right: he's a uniter, not a divider.

I'm a progressive. I think we should have free universal health care. I think we should outlaw guns, abolish the defense department and legalize drugs. I think teachers should be some of the highest paid professionals in the nation.

But it's going to take my uncle in Indiana a while to agree with me on most of those positions. And I'm okay with that. Because I can see that the best president for our nation isn't someone who takes polarizing positions and tries to ram them down people's throat. Here's how a Republican in the Illinois state senate described Obama:

“Obama is an extraordinary man,” he said. “His intellect, his charisma. He’s to the left of me on gun control, abortion. But he can really work with Republicans.”

I'm sick of divisive politics. We need to work together to get ourselves out of a whole lot of messes. And we need leadership that can do that.