*Please... Cut the Crap

This Election is Too Important to Let People Stay Home; Support ALL Democrats

President Obama's convention speech last night was nothing short of brilliant. But that shouldn't be a surprise, since nearly all of his speeches are brilliant. He touched on all the right themes, and demonstrated once again why he deserves a second term. As everyone who reads this blog knows, he has done a lot as president, despite having to work around some really significant obstacles. If you haven't read the list I compiled of President Obama's accomplishments, you owe it to yourself to do so, and pass it around to everyone you know. 

In a normal election year, I wouldn't be worried. President Obama is the best candidate for president, by far. Willard Romney, for all of his business "accomplishments," simply doesn't have the knowledge of what it means to run the government. His only experience in government was four years as Massachusetts governor, and that experience was apparently so bad, he won't even talk about it these days. 

But this isn't a normal election year. Progressives made a statement in 2008, and Barack Obama won in a landslide. It was the largest margin of victory by any Democrat since LBJ, and it felt great. We did it through positivity. Obama and progressives pushed a positive message that resonated with people of all ideological stripes, and we echoed that. We need to do that again. 

But we all stumbled badly in 2010. The negative rhetoric against Democrats caused many potential voters to stay home, and we allowed Tea Party Republicans to take control of the House and also come within a hair's breadth of taking over the Senate, too.

Most Important Qualification for President: Empathy - Obama Has It, Romney Doesn't

In her speech at the Democraic Convention, First Lady Michelle Obama pointed up the stark difference between her husband and his challenger quite well with the following statement:

"Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it, and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are, or where we're from, or what we look like, or who we love."

Ultimately, the main difference between Obama and Romney is that President Obama lived the dream that most of us imagine and aspire to, while Romney has lived a different dream, and can't seem to relate to what anyone else has gone through. r

That's not to discount Romney's version of the American dream. There is nothing wrong with being born rich and privileged.  But that rich person has to understand that a decision to run for public office is a decision to become a servant of the people. That equires you to make a concerted effort to learn and understand how the rest of us live. 

I'm not saying Romney's an ogre who hates people. I'm saying that he simply show no sign that he understands how the other 99% of us lives. That doesn't make him a bad person, it just disqualifies him from the presidency. Or should.