Barack Obama hits a home run at AAJ in Chicago
In my last blog post from the AAJ Chicago convention, I mentioned that I was not impressed with Senator Barack Obama's performance on Sunday at the AAJ convention. However, One performance does not a candidate make. On Monday, I was invited to a meet and greet event featuring Senator Obama at the Chicago Conservatory. It was a very nice event. The wine was good, but not expensive and the beer was Miller, instead of something fancy like Anchor Steam. They served hors d’oeuvres. The important thing was that Senator Obama met every single person in the room and talked with everyone individually.
When you meet Senator Obama, he is warm and genuine; a great interpersonal communicator. He is not a Bill Clinton; the kind of person that fills the room with his presence. Senator Obama is a quiet speaker with a powerful voice. He makes you feel like he is a capable and solid leader but also down to earth and humble. I must say that humble and capable is very appealing after watching the arrogant and incompetent leadership of the past 6 years.
After he met almost everyone in the room, he gave a speech about what he wanted to accomplish as President. He talked about Universal Health Care and getting out of Iraq. He talked about working to create a 60% Democrat majority in Congress so Democrats could make significant changes to help the American people. He also took questions from the floor and was thoughtful. Most of all he has great respect for America and our system of justice and the institutions that make this country great. His one blunder was saying he wanted to close "Guantanamo." I had to find out what he meant by that since, if he meant shutting down our base he would be blasted by the South Florida Cuban community. When I asked one of his nearby party hosts, what he intended to do. They said he was only referring to the prison portion of the base and not the base itself. Senator Obama feels we are doing a disservice to our criminal system by avoiding bringing these suspects to justice and simply trying to hold them without due process of law. He said the Senator, to his knowledge, has never talked about shutting down the entire base.
In a small forum, the Senator is a sincere and warm speaker. He was not scripted. Compared to Sunday’s performance at the convention, he hit a home run right out of the park. I am not ready to support the guy with a wholesale endorsement. He needs to show me that he can hold his own in a crowd of peacocks. I also need to understand his positions on areas like qui tam and whistleblower rights. So far, the other candidates look more assured. However, one on one, Barack Obama is a tough man to beat. He is making his platform and campaign a true grass roots campaign. He is raising a huge amount of money and he is not doing it with large corporate donations. Here is a shocking statistic: Senator Obama has more individual donors than all of the Republican candidates combined! He has a 70+-approval rating in his home state and a 55% approval rating with Republicans. If Senator Obama ran for his seat and only Republicans voted he would still win! At a grass roots level, Senator Obama will be hard to beat and if he wins, I will not feel like the Democrats picked in incompetent guy. I will bet my last dollar that Barack Obama is already more competent than our present leadership.
Brian from "Chi Town"
