Welcome to Texans for Obama

Obama may be just what the nation needs

This piece recognizes Obama's challenges but nevertheless concludes that Sen. Obama just might be the medicine our country needs after 8 long years of Bush failures.

An op-ed from Ann McFeatters:

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's long-shot race for the presidency could be an exciting shot in the arm for the nation, boosting the political adrenaline of Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike.

We've got a long road to travel to November, 2008. Here's hoping that Mr. Obama will use his campaign to enlighten and inspire us all before we decide which candidate we want to lead - and, we hope, unify - us for the next four years. Mr. Obama, whose first name means "blessed," is betting that the nation is ready for its first biracial president. He's planning to be a candidate who lives in Washington but acts as an outsider. He outlines his plan to "regain the American dream" in The Audacity of Hope, his second best-selling book. And he will officially announce his candidacy Feb. 10 in his home-state capital of Springfield, which sent Abe Lincoln to the White House.

Mr. Obama is hoping that the future has arrived and that his feel-good messages of the need for optimism and bipartisanship will appeal to Americans who haven't bothered to vote in recent elections.

Mr. Obama also has to convince skeptics why only two years of Senate experience is a suitable launching pad for the presidency. 

National security will be a huge issue in 2008. Accordingly, Mr. Obama will have to sell himself as a leader who can help make America safer despite being a political neophyte.

But there is undeniable excitement about Mr. Obama. It stems from the hope that his candidacy will not be just another chapter from the same old book of politics, but perhaps a new volume altogether. He's young. He's handsome. He's smart. He has a gorgeous family. He's easy to get along with, easy to listen to, and easy to like.

And he speaks loudly to Americans' disgust at the polarizing politics that have infected Washington. In addition to Democrats, prominent Republicans also have quietly urged him to run. In his short Senate tenure, he has gained a reputation for listening and working with those across the aisle.

Meet Barack Obama

This is an awesome video put together by the Obama Team.  Please spread the word and share it with all your friends.

3 reasons to support Obama

An op-ed from Owen Jones:

I am delighted and excited by Barack Obama's decision to form a presidential exploratory committee.  There are many reasons that I embrace this opportunity for our country, but here are just a few. 

1. First, Barack Obama is the voice within the Democratic Party that consistently makes sense when talking about the mess in Iraq. 
2. Second, and looking to a larger picture, it has been a very long time, too long, since our country was led by an appeal to our better instincts.
3. Third, we elect our presidents based as much on our assessment of their character as on their policy proposals.

These are not platitudes arranged for political convenience.  This is the portrait of a man of remarkable talents and great strengths.  Barack Obama is very unusual in the contemporary political landscape, but we all know someone, somewhere in our lives, a bit like him, an inspiring but accessible figure.  How refreshing, particularly now.  When was the last time America had the opportunity to consider a candidate of this caliber?

Why Barack Obama can compete successfully in the Iowa Caucuses

Douglas Burns of the Carroll, Iowa Daily Times Herald writes that Sen. Obama can do better than expected in the Iowa caucuses.

It goes without saying that when Barack Obama is on the television screen or behind the political podium we see a black man.

That is, after all, what he is.

But when you listen to Obama, the substance of thinking, the cadence of his reasoning, his unassuming acceptance of people, you hear a Midwesterner.

It is for this reason, as much as his Kennedyesque charisma, that Obama, 45, a Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois, a political mercury rising, could capture the Iowa Caucuses should he launch a presidential bid.

Current and former top Iowa politicians and a one-time Clinton administration appointee and Carroll native familiar with the inner workings of campaigns in this state see Obama as a potentially strong candidate in the Hawkeye State.

"What wins a caucus?" says former Republican Congressman Jim Ross Lightfoot. "If it is charisma, Senator Obama has the upper hand over all the Democrat contenders."

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who ran for president in 1992, saw the Barack effect up close and personal in Indianola this fall at Harkin's annual steak fry. Trailed by a horde of media and circled like a popular evangelist or rock star by well-wishers,

"I think Barack Obama has a lot of potential in many areas," Harkin told The Daily Times Herald at the time. "He has the potential of being a great senator, being a unifier in terms of bringing better race relations to this county."

Brad Knott, a 1976 Kuemper Catholic High School graduate who worked on President Bill Clinton's first campaign and has served as an adviser to Iowa Democrats, says at this point he is backing Obama.

"I really like Barack Obama," Knott, now a University of Maryland professor who maintains close ties to Iowa politics, said. "He is my guy right now. If he keeps the car between the ditches - no big mistakes and assuming he has 'reasonably' liberal politics - I think he will do well in the Iowa caucuses."

One recent poll places Obama third in the Iowa Caucuses running. The Sioux City Journal reports that former vice presidential candidate John Edwards is the top choice among Iowa Democrats likely to attend the 2008 presidential caucuses with 36 percent of those asked, according to an Environmental Defense poll.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., finished second with 16 percent and Obama had 13 percent. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack finished fourth at 9 percent.

For his part, Knott tells The Daily Times Herald that caucus attendees are generally liberal, older and want to win.

"Most recent national campaigns are won in the Midwest," Knott said. "Right now the Illinois senator is looking like a winner, knows the Midwest, is liberal enough and - most important for some - he is not Hillary."

Knott says Obama can transcend race in Iowa.

But even when Obama does take broadsides and carefully crafted insults, the inevitable slings and arrows of politics at the highest level, he will retain a rare connectivity to voters. He understands people, not because, as Bill Clinton, he feels their pain in some abstract Baby Boomerish sense.

Obama connects with others for the simple reason that he knows himself and is confident in his strengths and comfortable with his flaws.

This journey has made him remarkably open to others.

Obama's also willing to take an internal monologue, the rolling over of ideas and motivations and self-doubts, and make them public in two best-selling books.

Obama's also a politician who can write rich dialogue in his books, which means he has the ear and skill to give others a voice. It's not something one can fake.

In Indianola this past September, before a mostly white audience of 3,000 people, Obama held the crowd in rapt attention. In fact, it was so quiet at times that you could hear the leaves rustling in a gentle wind.

On the key issues of the day, Obama publicly opposed the invasion of Iraq in a rally in 2002 before the war started.

"We understand that fundamentally our effort in Iraq has been misconceived," Obama said.

But people shouldn't read the Obama family as pacifists, he said, noting that his grandfather, the man he wrote about extensively in his memoir, fought in Gen. George Patton's Army in World War II.

"There are times when we have to ask all of us to sacrifice on behalf of future generations," Obama said. "But this is not one of those times."

Reading his books reveals rather clearly what some of his priorities would be.

Moreover, there seems a sense among many that Barack Obama is a man for the time.

"He reminds me in many ways of Kennedy in 1960," Theodore Sorensen, JFK's speechwriter and adviser, told Newsweek.

Run Barack, Run!

Chris Cilliza writes for the Washington Post about why Sen. Obama should run for President.

There's little question that Obama is the hottest political Democratic commodity in the country right now, drawing support from across the geographic and ideological spectrum. When 2,000 people show up to a state party dinner just for the chance to see Obama in person, it's clear there is an excitement level about him that no other Democratic politician (not even Hillary Rodham Clinton) can match.

Don't underestimate the excitement factor when it comes to presidential politics. Much of 2007 will be spent in the campaign trenches -- door-knocking, sending out mail pieces, urging small dollar donations, the kind of work that is far from glorious and can only be done well if there is a committed group of volunteers willing to do it.

For those who say Obama needs more seasoning before making a national bid, take a look at history. No senator has been directly elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960, although scads have made the attempt. National polling shows the American public has soured considerably on Washington, and many Democratic insiders are coming to believe that the longer someone stays in Washington the less chance he or she has of being elected president.

As evidence, look no further than the current chief executive. When George W. Bush made clear he would run for president in 2000, he had only six years of elected office under his belt -- and that in a state where the governor has strict limits on his power. The lesson is that presidential elections are not always decided by the candidate with the longest -- or most impressive -- political resume. A great candidate on paper doesn't always equal a great candidate in practice.

Why Barack Obama is ready for the Presidency

Marcus Gadson explains why Obama would make a great president.

One of the most critical questions facing America is how to conduct its foreign policy. Here, Obama's biography gives him a unique ability to understand the problem of global poverty, which is one of the root causes of terrorism. As a kid he attended various schools in Indonesia, and witnessed the distress of third-world poverty first hand. He knows the plight of the world's poor, and I predict he will make the first bona fide effort of any President to do something about the poverty rampant in many parts of the globe. If anyone understands the link between national security and global poverty, it is Obama.

Detractors will always find reasons why Obama couldn't or shouldn't be President. They say his middle name is Hussein, that he smoked pot once, and that he made a bad land deal. But the country is ready for a new politics, and a new generation of leadership. America needs a man of vision and principle. Obama is that man, and I submit that he is more than ready to lead.

Ron Walters calls upon Sen. Obama to run for president

Ron Walters believes Sen. Obama's campaign for president is a no-lose proposition because, no matter the result, Obama "heightens his leadership profile in national politics and virtually ensures his Senate re-election in 2010."

The specter grows that finds Senator Barack Obama being turned into a national phenomenon, drawing huge crowds of people wanting to touch the hem of his garment and catch the verbal morsels that fall from his lips wherever he goes. So massive has been this response that it has sparked a political culture of speculation about his chances of running for president in 2008, especially as he travels to places like the testing ground of New Hampshire.

What people find attractive about Barack is first, his background, a White mother and Kenyan father, his early residences in Hawaii, Indonesia, Kansas – all giving off the scent of a multi-racialism in his growing up. Then, there is his degree from Harvard Law School and his role as the first Black editor of the Harvard Law Review, traditionally suggesting high intelligence, that he used in establishing a political career in state level politics, making a sound record of accomplishment. Finally, there are the intangibles of charisma, the earnestness in his voice, the self-deprecating, even folksy style and easily likable smile. These are telegenic qualities that fit well in a media where personal appeal is the stuff of political allure. It may even trump concerns about his limited political experience.

I think that Barack Obama should run for president, especially since he doesn’t lose politically. Even if he loses the nomination fight, it heightens his leadership profile in national politics and virtually ensures his Senate re-election in 2010. Right now, Obama’s true political value is unknown because of the curiosity factor. In the 2000 election, Alan Keyes, Obama’s 2004 opponent for his Senate seat in Illinois, drew large crowds to hear him speak, but he attracted few votes. Separating the entertainment factor from a political judgment may well be Obama’s most trying chore in making up his mind. Of course, if he finds a creative way to use it, that will be all to the good.