Reasons to Vote for Barack Obama

Not that I am eligible to vote or anything ... but if I could, I would vote for Barack Obama for the following reasons.

1. He listens to experts. He has assembled a group of smart and practical intellectuals to advise him on all sorts of topics. Hillary has her own agenda and ambition which appears to keep her from entertaining any "elitist" agenda.
   
   
2. He is a good manager. The way he hired very intelligent people to run a nearly flawless campaign to beat an established and seemingly unbeatable opponent in Hillary Clinton is commendable. He really knows how to surround himself with a smart group of people who can get things done and that is exactly what this country needs. Hillary hired people on the basis of their loyalty and counted on friends of the Clintons to win her the nomination. Unfortunately, all that influence and political capital could not overcome the grassroots movement Obama initiated.
   
   
3. He is not an ideologue. That allows him to make good decisions for this country of diverse ideologies. He is a less polarizing figure because he is not a dogmatic ideologue.
   
   
4. He is a uniter. He does not demonize his opponents. He is willing to listen to people with very different opinions from his own.
   
   
5. He says no to lobbyists. While I think the influence of lobbyists is somewhat overstated, if I am given a choice between someone whose campaign is infested with (McCain) and run by (Hillary) registered lobbyists or one that is free of such influence, I would pick the lobbyist-free campaign every time.
   
   
6. He is not a fear-monger. Well, he might be a hope-monger, but I would take a hope-monger over a fear-monger any day of the week except on Sundays. (I say no to organized religion).
   
   
7. He is smart. Hillary might be equally smart, but she is more of a Dr. Evil kind of smart. You wouldn't want that, would you? I can imagine her saying "it's President Clinton. I didn't stay married to my cheating husband to be called 'Senator'. Thank you very much."
   
   
8. He is an accomplished legislator. Contrary to the claims that he is all talk and no substance, he has accomplished a lot during his 8-yr tenure in the Illinois State Senate where he has sponsored more than 800 bills. See for yourself. His three years in the US Senate have also been very productive by any measure. He has ascended the power ladder in the Senate so as to achieve a higher legislative score than both Clinton (8 years in the Senate) and McCain (21 year veteran in the Senate) in just 3 years, according to Congress.org. His overall rank in the Senate is virtually tied with Clinton and McCain, but he only needed 3 years to achieve such success.
   
   
9. He knows how to run things. Sure he wasn't an ex-governor or CEO, but he has run a $250+ million campaign over the last 18 months better than anybody could have imagined.
   
   
10. He is a leader. Anyone questioning this claim better look at all the people he has inspired and mobilized.
    
    
11. He has good judgment. I am not just talking about his opposition to the the Iraq War, but the decisions he has made in this campaign which speak volumes about his decision-making ability.
    
    
12. Last but not least, as a person of color, I would love to see another person of color doing the most important job in the world.

... more to come in the future.

Here are some articles that outline Obama's success and Hillary's failures.

Top 10 Reasons Obama Defeated Clinton for the Democratic Nomination
By Robert Creamer, Huffington Post.

Why Appalachia Will Not Save Hillary Clinton - Skirting Appalachia by Charles M. Blow