VOTE

Change is coming, America. In your pro-America enclaves and your elitist, liberal Sodom and Gomorrahs, change will ring from sea to sea. And many a Republican has cried: “A-ha, but what type of change would Obama bring?” That is the question. And the answer is progress. Too long has “progressive” been a Bill O’Reilly and FOX News boogie-man. We are a nation whose greatest pride and joy is our democratic system—a Darwinian model that evolved from a European Monarchical rule—and it is predicated on progress. We demand that we use our vote to take the corrupt and incompetent out of office and seek better candidates who respond to our needs (a veritable survival of the fittest). So the question really is: “What is a fit America?” Is a fit America one in which all men are created equal?  Be they black, white, brown, yellow, or fuchsia. It doesn’t matter what color or sex or race you are, and a President Obama would show that.

Is he a token quota? No. Is this some sort of affirmative action? Absolutely not. Barack Obama, if he is elected president today, will have earned the Presidency fair-and-square on ideas. He will have been elected because of the content of his character, not the color of his skin as Dr. King so famously dreamed. He will be the America Dream personified.

I must temper my emotions with a logical argument because detractors of Obama delight in mocking the commitment, energy, and drive of his supporters. So I won’t say Obama has made me cry. I won’t say that when I see a young minority inspired by a true role model that it makes me proud to be an American. I won’t say that I gave hours of time and hundreds of dollars to Obama. I won’t say that I drove from my apartment in Los Angeles to the suburbs of Las Vegas to knock on doors for a candidate who I believe in. I won’t say all those things because then I’d be setting myself up to get mocked by the McCain campaign. I must be some High-School-Musical-esque fanboy or worse I must have been duped by the terrorist Obama who’s been plotting his secret overthrow of the government for years. But I’m not those things. I’m a college-educated, barely-employed, struggling writer/performer who owns less than Sarah Palin spent at Sachs Fifth Avenue in a day. Don’t call me elitist because I live in Hollywood. Don’t tell me I don’t love this country because I most certainly do. I love this country so much that I didn’t give up on it after the worst president in our history bankrupted our economy, overstretched our military, and raped our constitution. No, instead of giving up on America, I hoped for a better future. Barack Obama didn’t find me; I found him. In the Democratic primary I found a candidate who represents what America was always supposed to be.

I’m voting for Barack Obama.

-John Dardenne