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Print This Post “I’m Here Because of Ashley” Posted 5 months, 14 days ago., on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008, at 9:59 am

Damn, that was one hell of a speech.  I am SO hoping that Obama becomes the Democratic candidate for President.  America needs vision again, and I really, honestly, believe that Obama has the vision that American needs.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina.  She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer.  And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care.  They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches.  Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice.  Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally.  But she didn’t.  She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign.  They all have different stories and reasons.  Many bring up a specific issue.  And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time.  And Ashley asks him why he’s there.  And he does not bring up a specific issue.  He does not say health care or the economy.  He does not say education or the war.   He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama.  He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I’m here because of Ashley."  By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough.  It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start.  It is where our union grows stronger.  And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

I’m still boggling at the concept of seeing a politician that I can feel good about voting for.  If he becomes the Democratic candidate for President, then it will be such a relief, come November, to vote for a candidate because I like him, and not because I felt I was voting for the lesser of two evils.

(Not that I’m changing the category name I use for politics — politicians in general are still maniacs, morons, and robber barons.  Just so we’re clear on that.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under Maniacs and Morons and Robber Barons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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