***Posting from a friend of mine who used to run the Daily Speech Blog.***

OUR party has had an extraordinary battle for the presidential nomination. Two amazing historical candidates.
OUR great country (yes it is great, indeed) has seen a woman and an African American stand as serious viable candidates for the most powerful office on the planet – President of the United States.
Think that through folks, how amazing that is. You are living through history your great grandchildren will study in school.
Because of the strength and greatness of these two amazing people, passions are great on both sides, the passions of their respective supporters.
Many older women who fought the hard battle for gender equality in the 60s and 70s and even into today were busting at the seams with pride in Hillary Clinton and understandably so. She is a very talented intelligent gutsy woman and she would make a fine President. As a male feminist, I too look forward to seeing that highest glass ceiling broken.
The Democratic race for the nomination is not over yet, but what is so clear is we need to begin the process of healing our party and preparing for the fall battle against John McCain.
We need to be united to strengthen our majorities in the House and Senate and elect such fine Democrats as Mary Jo Kilroy.
Even as I praise what Hillary Clinton represents, the dreams she inspired and helped people to believe in, we also have an amazing candidate in Barack Hussein Obama. That’s right folks, use his middle name with pride!
When I saw this dynamic young state senator from Illinois give his rousing speech less than 4 years ago at the Democratic National Convention, his enthusiasm and his emphasis of national unity, I felt chills up my spine and I said at that moment, “We are watching the first black President of the United States speak”.
I am confident many Hillary Clinton supporters felt the same way hearing Obama speak then. Yet they as well as I never dreamed we were talking 2009.
To be sure, many Hillary Clinton supporters are angry that Barack Obama did not “wait his turn”. After all he is only 46 – 8 years from now he would still be quite young. Why could he not let Hillary Clinton serve her 8 years and then he could follow her?
Such anger is understandable. But often times history does not play as we wish it would.
September 11, 2001 saw a seismic shift in this country. Initially the whole country and even the world were united and George W. Bush squandered a historic opportunity by embroiling us in an unnecessary oil driven war in Iraq. While wasting precious lives and incredible money on that misadventure, he also paid his corporate buddies with continued tax breaks and no-bid contracts at the expense of the middle class and poor. He cravenly used the fear of 9/11 to win a squeaker “re-“election in 2004. Now Gallup says he is the most unpopular president since they started polling 70 years ago.
John McCain IS a Vietnam War hero and we need to honor his great service to this country. He ran a truly maverick campaign against George W. Bush in 2000 and opposed Bush many times in the last 8 years. But as he approached 70 years of age he realized his final opportunity to be president had arrived and he caved on virtually every principle he had. He was against Bush’s wasteful tax cuts for the rich. He is now for them. He championed campaign finance reform, and yet “used” the system last December to finance his cash starved campaign and turned around and broke FEC rules, he was a passionate opponent of Bush’s war crimes torture policies and now is muted on that (and as a former POW for God’s sake!), he criticized the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as “agents of intolerance” and then kissed Falwall’s ring at an appearance at Liberty University last year. He turned from a man of honor to an old man desperate to be president at any cost, willing to pander in anyway necessary – the hell with his principles.
John McCain has morphed into George W. Bush and we cannot allow him to be President.
So let’s finish this Democratic nomination race for President on a high note. Let’s let the remaining states and territories vote. Let’s find a fair way to seat Michigan and Florida and let’s unite behind the nominee of our party when that is made official. For the supporters of whoever loses the nomination, we will not forget we are fighting for the same things and that we will stand behind you and WITH you as we fight to bring to Washington a new voice for the people, a person who will bring true hope and respect back for our country, here and abroad.
For the candidate I support since day one, I leave you with this: