I guess you can cite blacks for neing racist. How many will vote for Obama because he is black. I can undestand that they want to see the first black president but it still seems like a racist motive. I do not like any of the people running although McCain scares me a little more than the others.

There is a generation just behind us — those of us over 45 — who grew up in a world where intimate realtionships — through music, art, education, even interracial and interethnic marriages — who like Obama have the unique gift of being able to ignore race when choosing friends, mates and business associates. This next generation will blur the color line because that line is no longer printed in black on white on their hearts and minds. It may not happen this time because so many elders are still racially fearful, but as the new voter rolls swell with young people the tide will turn.

The polling information I saw today puts Hillary only 6 points ahead of Obama in PA. (I am from Pittsburgh.) He is gaining steadily. My message is simple. In a few years we will be depending on the current 20-somethings to carry the responsibility for this nation. If we turn our backs on the degree to which Obama has energized this group and, seemingly for the first time in their lives, caused them to actually make a conscious connection between themselves and their government, we do so at our own peril. The public has been asleep at the wheel of our democracy for way too long now…and WE’RE the former student activists! Duuhhh! Our country needs inspiring leadership, a curious and probing mind, a person who knows himself and is comfortable with who he is, a person with a deep sense of personal integrity (not so our “sister” Hillary), one who would be viewed as a “fresh start” in our international relations, one who understands that our nation will not survive without a middle class, one who can begin to finally put to rest the sins of our slavery past. We are out of time. We cannot afford to miss the opportunity we have to reverse our downward spiral.

I really didn’t think too much about Obama, except I hoped he wouldn’t run. My only interest was would the person I thought should be a candidate was going to run. He ran in 2004, and people were hoping he would try again in 2008, I thought he should try again in 2012. But he decided to run and announced he was running in December of 2006 before Obama was in the race. I have really not paid any attention to Obama, except the media pushed him in our faces, like it or not. I really didn’t think America was ready to elect a black person for president, because racism still exists in the country, in every part of life, mostly subtle but it is there. Just look at the neighborhoods in America, that is the true sign and Katrina was the proof. Personally I still feel America is still not ready, but there are indications that Obama really has a chancer to get the nomination and even get elected, but the reason is people can’t stand GW Bush and his policies on almost everything, starting with Iraq and the lie, the economy, education and the lack of opportunity for all those who are poor and middleclass, and if your skin is not white the opportunities are less, college educated or not. So if Obama gets elected it will be because people are tired of GW Bush, and anyone of any color will do, they have got to be better than GW.

Barack Obama will win the nomination and the Presidency. Despite the myth of Republiklan party superiority on national defense, any sane person realizes that myth exploded on the first plane that hit the world trade center on Sept 11, 2001 when the Republiklan party held the white house, the senate and the house of representatives. In fact the the Republiklan party appears the only party that has actually demonstrated their weakness on national defense and security starting with 9-11-2001. Oh and we did have attacks after 9-11 as a right wing anthrax killer killed several people at home, so the Republiklan party did not keep us safe on 9-11 nor afterwards despite their heated lying accusatory McCarthyite rhetoric. People will not stand for a party that has killed 1 million innocent Iraqis and John McCain can cry to the heavens about calamity for leaving Iraq but his party has created a calamity of killing one million Iraqis already. Oh and Saddam did kill his own people ( The Kurds ) but in 1987 during the Reagan administration who ignored it because they needed the oil. Republican party members don’t care much about people but rather oil profits for their friends. We need capitalism but not the version of capitalism that the Republiklan party practices. As for domestic policies, the Republiklan party with their laissez faire economics has not helped the middle class much less the poor and the independents of this nation will abandon the Republiklan party this fall. What good does it do if you served in a war but run for president like a big business whore and John McCain’t will not win the public confidence on national defense and domestic economics. The Reagan revolution will end and people will realize that they don’t pay too much taxes but rather their cheap labor Republiklan party voting boss doesn’t pay them enough. The antitax message will not play in America any more. People have realized that their wages have stagnated in the middle class and wake up to the notion that the Republiklan party does not appear their friend. www.democratz.org

I too like Obama, though my political sense is that he’d be hit with the same dirty tactics that Rove used against Gore & Kerry. As a LiberaL - I think some of his ideas are good, new, and fresh, but only some. Problem is, he’s too new to National politics, and naive just as Prez Bush was, and look where that has gotten us! Personally I think, Hillary has the heart and, excuse my french, guts to shake and move things back to more humane national and global policies. We really - need - a woman’s touch to get us out of the mess we’re in! Women clean up men’s messes, don’t we?

Barack Obama is an interesting man. He’s erudite, knows how to talk to people but I don’t trust him. He’s too young, has a quick temper and he’s also too calm. Those two attitudes together are not good. I feel a sense of his feeling a bit above us. It would be a dream team for me if it was Clinton President, Barack Obama Vice President. No one could beat us. Thanks, Janis