2008 Is Right Around the Corner

As most of you know, I try to limit my political views on my blog, posting as little as possible regarding that issue, but...

Over the last few days I've been hearing and seeing a lot of Barack Obama. If you have not heard of him, he is a first term Democratic Senator from Illinois. Before 2004 no one had ever heard of this passionate politician. His political promise has been evident since the moment he stunned the 2004 Democratic National Convention with a keynote speech emphasising all the things that bind, rather than divide, Americans.

Now he has stated that he may very well run for President... "Given the response I've been getting the past several months, I have thought about the possibility," Mr Obama told NBC's Meet The Press. After next month's mid-term elections, he continued, he would "sit down and consider it".

I have been following him for sometime and listened to him in speeches and most recently on Oprah, and he sounds and looks like someone I would support. Then this morning I read an article while surfing the "net" and was appalled at what I read. The person (and I use that term loosely) started his rant with..."Obama is Black"

That was just the beginning of what I would describe as one of the most racist articles I have read in quite sometime and I became enraged. To think that we still live in a country where we base someone's abilities on their race made me sick to my stomach. If he does decide to run, I pray this does not become a campaign issue. Personally I never even thought about him being black when I first heard him give the keynote speech in 2004, I was more amazed at his passion, intelligence and charisma.

Senator Obama carries some of the same sort of charisma that propelled John Kennedy into the Presidency in 1960. He has a natural appeal that is multicultural. He is the son of a Kenyan father and a Kansas mother, he has known both poverty and privilege.
He was one of the stars of his class at Harvard Law School, but he has also worked as a social worker and street organiser in Chicago's roughest neighbourhoods, and later practised as a civil rights lawyer.

It is way too early for me to make any decision on my presidential vote for 2008 ( as we really have no idea who is really going to run) but some things are certain, it is NOT going to be based on their gender or the color of his/her skin.

Could this be the beginning of an Obama/Clinton Democratic ticket? If so just remember you heard it hear first...(probably not the first, but one of the first.)