think different... Barbara Roche

	A President Like My Father By CAROLINE KENNEDY Published: 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.. Click to view entire article


I think it is amazing that in the last 45 years, since her father was in office, Caroline Kennedy never felt moved to endorse a candidate for the presidency... until now. My own feelings on this... In past elections, I have not been able to get very excited about presidential elections. I have always felt a sense of foreboding about the candidates. With the exception of one candidate... When I was a kid I was passionate about John F Kennedy. I was too young to vote but I wore my Kennedy/Johnson button and I put my Kennedy/Johnson bumper sticker on my school notebook. There was something about that time and the need we had as a country for change. John Kennedy gave us hope. John Kennedy made this country feel. I cannot recall my family ever endorsing a candidate before or since his election. When I reached voting age, I could not feel passionate about any candidates. It has consistently been an effort to get myself to the voting booth to pull a lever for someone that I didn't believe in. I feel that voting is a privilege that should not be taken for granted... so I vote... not out of passion for the candidate, but for the lesser of two evils... until now. I must confess that I am feeling the rise of hope in my heart with this election. Should I listen to that voice of hope and vote with my heart... or should I play it safe and continue the familiar path of the partisanship of the last decades? My head says get someone in there that has more experience. My heart says to vote for a man who is moving me in the way that I was moved as a kid. My heart says vote for a man who is giving this nation hope, who is moving this nation to feel, who is uniting this nation and inspiring us to believe that, yes we can, make a difference. If you think that one person can't make a difference, then what would this nation be without Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King? After 9/11, the entire world embraced our nation, our people. We felt it. Do we feel it now? Look at what one man has done to bring this nation down. In this current administration there is no hope, there is dread. There is no love for our country and fellow man, there is greed and a nation of people looking out for themselves. We have been in our selfish survival mode for so long that we have forgotten what it feels like to love our country, to be united... one nation under God. I never thought I would say that I don't feel proud to be an American. I love my country but I don't feel pride. I feel embarrassed. I feel regret and remorse for the acts of this nation. How pitiful we have become. I want change. I want to feel the pride in this country that I felt when I was a kid. I want to feel hope. My heart tells me, yes we can... one person can make a difference. My heart tells me to vote for Barack Obama.

	We have been warned against offering people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false, about hope. We know the battle ahead is long, but always remember, no matter what obstacles stand in our way... nothing stands in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change. We are one people, we are one nation, and together we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast and from sea to shining sea... yes we can. ~Barack Obama