President-Elect Obama

Dear President-Elect Obama,
Congratulations. This is an historical moment for our country. I'd like to congratulate you on your tireless, no doubt stressful, campaign. You overcame not only the obvious barrier of being the first African-American to have a real chance at the White House, but other less mentioned barriers: two very popular politicians in Hillary and John. You had further to climb and more circumstances trying to hold you back and yet you were victorious. You should be very proud.

You addressed a group of voters during your acceptance speech: "And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn..." Well, that's me. "- I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices." Sorry Senator Obama but that remains to be seen. I'm going to be honest with you Mr. President-Elect. I wanted to vote for you as you emerged the winner the Democratic primary contest. I wanted to back someone who was promising to, as you put it last night, "resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long." But you then participated in that very act during your national campaign. Was this a case of "the ends justify the means?" You are now echoing the very words spoken at the RNC by the man you just defeated for the highest office in the land. He said, "Instead of rejecting good ideas because we didn't think of them first, let's use the best ideas from both sides. Instead of fighting over who gets the credit, let's try sharing it." I truly hope that you live up to this hype that you failed to live up to during your campaign. Perhaps, now that you have attained your goal, you can be the statesman, not the politician, that I had originally hoped for. My challenge for you: Win my vote in 2012.

You are a very inspiring speaker. While this definitely helped you win this election, I fear that it could unseat you as well. In all of your charismatic oration, you've convinced people that you can somehow bring about a type of utopia. Free healthcare, peace in Iraq, a better life for the middle class. I urge you, please examine past economic policies before instituting your own. The middle class will not likely support you again should they receive more in their paychecks from the government, but less from their employers only to see more go toward everything they have to purchase.

Having said all of that, you are my President and I will support you, critique you, and pray for you. I will openly support your policies that I agree with, and I will condemn those that I don't. Should the scale ever tip too far to the latter, my support for you may falter, perhaps even fail. But make no mistake. All that you've done before is past. I will view it as the means to this end and let you start anew.

~One whose support you have, but whose vote you have not yet earned,
Just My Opinion.



Ok, before I could write the above letter, I had to get out of my system a letter of a different ilk. Here's what I had to write first:

Dear President-Elect Obama,
Congratulations. You've managed to deceive more than 50% of the people that chose to vote that you were the right man for the job. Truth be told, with the way you ran your campaign, the Democrats could have nominated a lemming and it would have won over the Republican nominee. It was obvious from the get-go that "we can't afford four more years" would be the Left's mantra. And while the GOP managed to nominate the most non-Bush of the bunch, you still managed to pin the Bush III moniker on him. Well done.

You've got a long road ahead of you. I hope you are already planning your rebuttals to the "read my lips" moments that you can expect in 2012. Tax breaks for everyone making under $150K, free healthcare, more jobs, higher wages, out of Iraq, renewable energy, abortions for all, A BCS Playoff, a rebound in the economy (Even as I type the DOW falls), assistance for "main street," and unconditional talks with Iran, North Korea, and Syria, just to name a few. Your tax plan should accomplish the first one, but that means it will make the third and fourth improbable (if not impossible). Those not occurring will likely mean that the ninth will be quite sometime in coming. Which, of course, means that you won't have the money necessary to do numbers two, six, and ten. Even now, you can't carry out the eleventh because when they heard that you would sit without precondition, the leaders of those countries set some preconditions of their own. Now they have the power in the relationship. That leaves the fifth, seventh, and eighth. You don't actually have the power to do the eighth, though it would be nice. The fifth is a non issue because we've already agreed with their government that we'll be out by 2012. Which leaves the seventh. Yup, there's no doubt we'll get that one.

You made a call for unity. I find that ironic. Obviously, it is the responsibility of the party not in power to find a way to unify with the party in power. I'm just wondering why you expect Republicans to unify with you when you, as a Senator, made no effort to unify with them.

In conclusion, part of me looks forward to see if you will really do what you promised: bring actual change to Washington. Or if you will simply continue the partisanship and make it left leaning. Another part of me can't wait to watch your economic plans prove, yet again, that Ronald Reagan was an economic genius and that, like most things in life, to effect the long term you might have to do something that looks like it is sacrificing the short term but if you focus on the short term you are guaranteed to sacrifice the long term. If you take that path, your long term will be short, and will still be looking for the first two term African-American President.

~One whose vote you have not yet earned,
Just My Opinion.


now go read the first letter again.