My pretty-much-preferred candidate, Senator Obama, made a splendid showing on Super Tuesday! Now that the big day is over, I can see even more clearly where my feelings lie about Obama himself and about the presidential race overall.
Watching Obama's journey has been inspiring to me as an African-American. It's extremely gratifying to see a black man run such a good campaign and be so well received by the American people. In terms of what I would wish for him personally, his success up through this week would be enough to make me happy. And seeing the way he has inspired young people and new voters to get involved in the political process, I think he's done a great service to our country just by running. If he were competing for the nomination against a Howard Dean or a Barbara Boxer, I would be ready to sit back and say, "Good for him! Win or lose, he's done himself proud!"
But I can't sit back. I'm still on the edge of my seat. Because he's not running against Dean or Boxer; he's running against someone who helped to get us into this horrible war. For the sake of our country and our reputation in the world, we have got to express a full repudiation of the Bush doctrine. Obama is the only candidate left who can do that. That's why I'm still so emotionally attached to this race, looking at the delegate counts and the polls, checking hourly to see if they've called the primary in New Mexico yet (right now, with 99% of the precincts reporting, Hillary is ahead by 1,123 votes).
We need for Obama to win because we need for the other candidates to NOT win. Yes, my vote for him was partly an "anti-" vote; I'm not ashamed to say it. He's done enough to be a credit to himself, but America needs for him to go all the way. Keep it up, man.
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