My endorsement: Barack Obama

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) appears to be almost unstoppable as we are now officially into Tsunami Tuesday. In the key race in California, he is now ahead of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) by a full 13 percentage points according to Zogby, while Rasmussen still has him ahead by just one. Many are saying that the advance polls probably swung towards Clinton but I'm not entirely sure about that. California is a bellwether for future trends and I think that many have just plain lied to the pollsters -- they don't want to necessarily admit that they have reservations about extending the Bush - Clinton family feud into a third decade.

I don't doubt that Mrs. Clinton would do a good job. (So would have John Edwards, except my first choice dropped out last week.) But America needs something more than a mere technocrat. They need someone who can inspire and who can convince Americans to set aside their fears just as Washington, Lincoln and FDR did. So, if I was an American, I would be voting for Barack Obama.

It's not an issue of race or of sex. It's about inspiration and it's about hope. And Obama has hit a raw nerve, the kind we haven't seen since two of the three Kennedy brothers who ran for President. (The third, Ted, never had a chance even against an unpopular Carter back in 1980.) He does have some drawbacks, not the least of which is his health care proposal which might help 75% of Americans at best compared to Clinton's 90-95%.

But he is, if anything else, principled. He was opposed to the Iraq War from the very beginning. Hillary Clinton can't fall back on the excuse that she was deceived -- frankly, America and the world entire was deceived about the WMD issue. The problems was Congress wasn't asking the tough questions. Obama and others were, even before he was elected to the Senate.

As well, Obama's been correct in his assessment that "No Child Left Behind" has been an abyssmal failure because the funding that should have gone to it has instead gone to fund a fruitless struggle. He's also strongly against the idea of "vouchers," which is just another clever attempt by Republicans to destroy public education. One shouldn't teach to the test (the standardized tests), one should teach to ensure those tests are the least we can expect from kids, not the most.

But the big point is that Obama represents the attitude of doing something for one's country rather than just expecting an entitlement. Yes, America must do better by its middle and lower classes especially when it comes to the tax burden. But before my time when a challenge was issued America rose to the challenge. It did so in science and technology, human rights, the attempt to alleviate endemic poverty. Even most Republicans understood the need to protect the environment as Nixon did. Then came Reagan who said trees cause acid rain and took the world on a downhill slide that continues to this day.

Simply stated, Barack Obama truly is the "Maverick" that the Secret Service deservedly calls him. If it comes down to a choice between my head (Obama) and my heart (Clinton, code-named "Evergreen"), I go with my head. Eight years of a heart with no brain have been an utter disaster and America and the world doesn't need four more years of that from either party. I'd prefer someone who has a brain tempered with a heart, not the other way around. I'd like to see the day a woman becomes President, but Mrs. Clinton just doesn't cut it for me.

On the lighter side of the news: The Mayan Indians, and now televangelist Jack Van Impe, predict the end of the age will be on December 21, 2012. I was under the impression when I read the Bible that the Rapture occurs during or after the Tribulation -- not before it.

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