COLIN POWELL: "I WILL BE VOTING FOR BARACK OBAMA"

UPDATE: Richardson to Endorse Obama

Thank you, Bill Richardson. The New Mexico Governor is expected to endorse Obama tomorrow at a rally in Portland, Oregon. Will John Edwards soon follow?

CAROLINE KENNEDY: "A President Like My Father"

Op-Ed Contributor
A President Like My Father
By CAROLINE KENNEDY

January 27, 2008

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.

Most of us would prefer to base our voting decision on policy differences. However, the candidates’ goals are similar. They have all laid out detailed plans on everything from strengthening our middle class to investing in early childhood education. So qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual.

Senator Obama has demonstrated these qualities throughout his more than two decades of public service, not just in the United States Senate but in Illinois, where he helped turn around struggling communities, taught constitutional law and was an elected state official for eight years. And Senator Obama is showing the same qualities today. He has built a movement that is changing the face of politics in this country, and he has demonstrated a special gift for inspiring young people — known for a willingness to volunteer, but an aversion to politics — to become engaged in the political process.

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

Senator Obama is running a dignified and honest campaign. He has spoken eloquently about the role of faith in his life, and opened a window into his character in two compelling books. And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Caroline Kennedy is the author of “A Patriot’s Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love.”

Nevada's Largest Newspaper Endorses Obama

The Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest newspaper, endorsed Barack Obama earlier this week and ran this thought-provoking editorial this morning. While much of the discussion of Obama's campaign has centered on his appeal to youth voters, the authors explore how his vision for the country resonates among older Americans.

Jan. 18, 2008



Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal



Obama will renew faith in federal programs:
Older Americans know we need collective safety net



By NANCY ALTMAN and ERIC KINGSON


SPECIAL TO THE REVIEW-JOURNAL



Older Americans are destined to be one of Barack Obama's strongest constituencies.


Obama has not yet done as well with voters 65 and over as he has with younger ones. And there's not a lot of difference between Sens. Obama, Clinton and Edwards when it comes to "senior" issues, such as Social Security and Medicare. Nevertheless, we believe older Americans should and will gravitate to Obama. Here's why:


Of all voters, Obama's themes resonate best among the old. Identical to younger Americans, senior citizens do not wish to be set aside; neither can the nation afford to lose their energy and skills. Obama's call to civic engagement is consistent with the creation of a new, more vibrant old age for those who seek new adventures and new opportunities to strengthen America.


Moreover, Obama's message of unity, inclusiveness and hope speak loudest to senior citizens. Older Americans have experienced first hand what collective action can do for our nation and the world, and how hope is the only antidote to despair.


In the 1950s and the 1960s, today's seniors witnessed the Civil Rights movement that captured the conscience of the nation and took us closer to the founders' belief that all of us are created equal, an ideal that says that anyone of our citizens, man, woman, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, can be elected president of the United States.


Today's oldest Americans, those who lived through the Great Depression, know an additional truth, as well. They know that events beyond one's control can shake the foundations of life. The economy can disintegrate; a parent can die leaving dependent children; a worker can become disabled, ill, or can retire and outlive one's savings.


Older Americans recognize that the best solution to these problems of life is collective action, in the form of insurance. This recognition of the power of unity and collective action is what led to the enactment of Social Security and Medicare. They are the values that underlie those programs today.
These programs thrive today because politicians and citizens of other times wisely understood that we are at our best, as individuals, families, communities and as a nation:

-- When we understand that we are "all in it together."



-- When we accept that the moral quality of a society is determined not by the wars we start, but by how, in the words of Hubert Humphrey, the society treats "those who are in the dawn of life (the children); the twilight of life (the elderly); and the shadows of life (the sick, the needy and the handicapped)."



-- When we take up common cause to care for ourselves, our families, our neighbors and our community,



-- And when government responds with practical, dignified, secure and efficient means for hard-working Americans to protect their children, families and their communities.



The politics of the past few decades has been unusually divisive. Consistent with these politics, Social Security has been cynically used as a wedge issue, seeking to pit generations against each other by arguing that Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable and undermining the well-being of future generations.



But the "What's-in-it-for-me" attitude of Washington does not reflect everyday Americans; grandparents care about the well-being of their grandchildren and vice versa.



In rejecting Red States/Blue States, White/Black dichotomies, Obama moves the nation away from those who would drive a wedge between young and old.
Obama intuitively embraces the promise of American democracy and the hope for a better future for all Americans, in a way that no other candidate today does.



Support for Obama will grow among older persons because they understand, better than any of us, the need for unity and hope. Like all Americans, they have a stake in creating a legacy of peace, prosperity and opportunity for their children, grandchildren and those who follow.



Nancy Altman, author of "The Battle for Social Security: From FDR's Vision to Bush's Gamble" (Wiley, 2005) was Alan Greenspan's top assistant when he chaired the 1982 commission that developed the Social Security Amendments of 1983. Eric Kingson, professor of social work and public administration at Syracuse University, served as adviser to the Greenspan commission, and, in 1994, to the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform. Contact them at Njalt@aol.com and erkingso@syr.edu.