September 18, 2008

Obama is the only one who is going to make change

Democrats Calling
By JOE CALIENDO

    Some people in this country are concerned about voting for a black man where it involves the Office of the President.
    But can this country afford not to vote for someone, regardless of his color, whose administration can fix this economy and steer this country back from the brink?
    John McCain cannot do it. He talks about keeping the United States in a 100 year war, which this country cannot afford. Seven years of this war have cost us all billions of dollars per week. The debt is almost hard to imagine, and the United States owes a lot of it to countries that are absolutely a threat to this nation, chiefly China.
    When Americans vote for Barack Obama, they vote for the same Clinton economic team that guided this country into prosperity, when people had jobs and money.
    I remember when Americans were afraid of voting for the first Catholic president in this country. I made my decision and I was a strong supporter of John F. Kennedy for president. I made the right decision then, and I am making the right decision now when I am working for Barack Obama.
    Regardless of what some white people will say in public, they are afraid of entrusting our country to a black man. Well, I am not going to try and talk anyone out of how they feel. But what this country needs is healthcare, childcare, financial stability, jobs and some hope. And, John McCain, who has been a great senator and hero in Vietnam, is just not the guy who is going to give the spark to this country that it needs to recover.
    It is administrations that run countries, and not just individuals. Case in point:
    This country has been run badly for the last eight years. America has listened to a lot of talk about prosperity, believed the lies that have been peddled by the Bush Administration, and now the country is staring into the face of a depression.
    I have lived through a depression before, being that I was born in 1934. It is not a joke when America goes bankrupt. The consequences of a Depression are felt by every economic demographic in this country, and it is the worst. No one who lived through the Great Depression takes it lightly at all. The dollar is worth nothing. Unemployment spirals. Businesses die, and so does hope.
    What brought this country back from the abyss was the New Deal, from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Roosevelt was called every dirty name in the book by the Conservatives of his day, but still managed to bring a shattered economy back from the edge. This economy can still be saved. But, the same people who put this country in the position it is in today will not save it.
    The only way for America to recover is by electing Barack Obama as the next president of the United States, be he black, white, purple or green. This is not an election about diversity, or liberal versus conservative. This election is about the economic and commercial survival of the United States, and he's the only one who can get it done.

(Joe Caliendo is the chairman of the Middletown Township Democratic Party. He has been active in municipal government and politics since the 1961 campaign of former President John F Kennedy.)