TEN TOP REASONS I'M VOTING FOR OBAMA

                                  (Any One of Which Would Be Enough)

10) Obama writes his own books, plus such major speeches as the one on race in America. We know who he is. (For fifteen years, McCain’s books and speeches have been written by Mark Salter, a staffer who focuses on McCain’s POW story and love for Hemingway’s hero in For Whom the Bell Tolls.  A vote for McCain could be a vote for Salter. Or for Hemingway.)

9) Despite some Republican candidates further down the ticket who retain the spirit of Eisenhower, Rockefeller and the pro-choice majority of Republicans – the Party that opposed the military industrial complex and was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment – the current Republican platform is in the stranglehold of rightwing extremists, many if not most of whom used to be Democrats. (Think of Jesse Helms and Southern Baptists.) Even McCain was too much in this stranglehold to choose pro-choice Senator Lieberman as vice president, as he would have preferred. Instead, McCain chose Sara Palin to please evangelical Christians, and her lack of preparedness to become Vice President, much less President, became the top reason that voters have cited in abandoning McCain for Obama. (Here’s the good news: If McCain/Palin are defeated by a big enough margin, the extremist stranglehold will be broken, the majority of Republicans may get their party back, and the country will be freed from the fiction of an equal and hostile division between Republicans and Democrats.)

8) There are some things Obama just refuses to do: for instance, repeat media misogyny against Hillary Clinton, or use McCain’s age against him. Having experienced the pain of labels himself, he treats people as individuals. (On the other hand, the McCain campaign is a festival of stereotypes and labels, from “Hockey Mom” and “Joe the Plumber” to “socialist” and “terrorist.” No wonder McCain thought that just the label “woman” would allow Palin to fool disappointed Hillary supporters, even though Palin was the candidate of Rush Limbaugh, and opposes everything Clinton and most American women support.)  The deeper truth is this: McCain stereotypes; Obama individualizes. McCain ranks; Obama links.

7) Obama's humor is spontaneous and usually turned on himself, from his ears to his bowling. McCain’s tells prepared jokes that are usually turned against other people. (McCain told a crowd that Hillary Clinton was secretly cheering for him, as if she had no principles.  He also tells crowds such jokes as: 1) “Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh, and contentedly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'” 2) “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?”  “Because Janet Reno is her father.”) In humor veritas.

6) Then there is character betrayed in choosing a life partner. Obama chose Michelle, a lawyer who once supervised his work, and is his peer in everything from intellect to age -- and even height. She often substitutes for him as a speaker.  (Now, I’m not holding it against McCain that he broke up his first marriage – anymore than I would the Clintons for keeping theirs together – but Cindy, his current wife, was an heiress young enough to be his daughter, with a powerful father who could help McCain win an open Congressional seat in her home state of Arizona (there was none in his own state of Florida). Since then, she has spoken often and publicly about how separate their lives are, and has been mostly seen listening to him attentively; an haute couture version of Pat Nixon. She is also shorter than McCain, which seems relevant because his well-known anger has been directed at aides who set up a debate that reveals him to be shorter than his opponent, most of all when it was Claire Sargent, who ran against him for U.S. Senate. (He refused to stand next to, or even shake hands with, Claire who is taller than he in her stocking feet.) Personally, I don't care how short a leader is, I just care that he cares. Think Napoleon.

5) I was the generation who saw my future disappear with the death of President Kennedy, then Martin Luther King, then Robert Kennedy; literally the death of the future. Thanks to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, this is the first time I have felt the possibility of a transformative future return.

4) Especially since the invasion of Iraq, in the estimation of the majority of people in most countries of the world, the United States has become as much or more a source of danger as terrorism itself. Whether the concern is international cooperation on nuclear treaties and the environment or a respected ally on the side of, say, Israel, this extreme lack of respect is dangerous. The majorities in all those countries favor Obama over McCain. Our elections have such global impact that we must listen to wishes and wisdom outside our shores.

3) Obama supports reproductive freedom as a human right, from sex education in the schools to improved health care during pregnancy and childbirth, from safe and legal abortion to health care for pregnant women and universal health care for children. Globally, he would restore funding to international family planning programs, and rescind the Gag Rule that forbids recipients of U.S. aid from discussing or providing abortion – even with their own funds. Planned Parenthood gave Obama/Biden a 100% rating, and both get high marks from the non-partisan Children's Defense Fund. (McCain has a zero rating from Planned Parenthood. He has been named the most anti-child member of the U.S. Senate by the non-partisan Children’s Defense Fund. He and Sarah Palin have pledged to criminalize abortion – with Palin doing this even in cases if rape or incest -- yet such cruel policies would increase illegal abortions by withholding sex education from the schools, birth control from health plans, emergency contraception from rape survivors, funding from programs to lower the rate of teenage and unintended pregnancies (which is higher in the U.S. than in any other modern democracy). McCain/Palin would deprive global family planning and safe abortion programs of U.S. funds, thus perpetuating the current global pregnancy-related death rate of one woman who loses her life every minute. (Incidentally this forced population growth as the single greatest cause if global warming.)

2) There is a third branch of our government - the Judiciary - at stake in this election. Lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court will have an impact for generations to come.  George W. Bush used his Presidency to appoint more than one-third of the judges who are now on the federal bench. Everything is at stake, from this country’s descent into torture to keeping at least the eviscerated shell of Roe v. Wade; from our right to free speech to our right to just elections. This is big time and long term.

1) I close my eyes and imagine the morning after Obama and Biden have won. I imagine the hope in the air, the young people who feel empowered, and the confirmation that our country is a source of hope and human possibilities. Now, I close my eyes and imagine who would be celebrating, who would feel empowered, if McCain and Palin were victorious. (It is this contrast that has caused me and my friends to come to Colorado, to hold two or three meetings every day to work as hard as we can to supply facts. This is reason enough for you in this audience to call friends here and in other states tonight, encourage and feed and accompany people who may be in long lines tomorrow, report and protest all and any unfairness at the polls, and do every possible thing till the last polls are closed.) It is a choice between the hope that Obama inspires, and the fear that McCain exploits. If we trust hope as a form of planning, we will have our democracy back. We will be able to become a community at home, and a beacon of hope in the world again.                              ---- Gloria Steinem

                                                     ####

During ten days and twenty-seven community meetings in Colorado, Gloria’s purpose was to supply the information that links our lives to the actions of our government – whether we are Democrats, Republicans or Independents – especially in this crucial swing state with fourteen initiatives on its ballot; more than in any other state. She was often joined by others citizen experts from non-partisan Colorado groups and the focus was especially on uncommitted voters. Though she made clear that she supported first Hillary Clinton and now Barack Obama, she focused on the reasons in pro-equality, pro-environment and other majority interests.

          At the last meeting in the Brighton High School auditorium on the night before the election, however, she listed her own reasons (with a slight nod to David Letterman):