You keep hoping, Dope, while Obama and his real supporters make it happen.

He's a politician. A principled, skilled, and inspiring politician, but still a politician. I have no doubt that he will sometimes have to compromise his ideals for what seems feasible. But, as he's already shown, he trusts the American people enough to tell them the truth, and not to lazily reach for the deceitful, easy pander.

I think that that sense of principle -- the sense that he is not a poll-driven politician who will say whatever he thinks the voters want to hear -- was what was lacking in Gore and Kerry, and cost us the elections of 2000 and 2004. 2004 should have been a landslide. Unfortunately, Gore and Kerry, playing the political game as it was supposed to be played, portrayed themselves as more centrist than they really were. They came across as being willing to say whatever the polls told them voters wanted to hear, and independents and Republicans just didn't believe them. Obama is trying to win it differently.

This year, the Republicans will try every deceitful, fear-mongering, race-baiting, vote-suppressing tactic that's worked for them in the past, and then some. To become President, Obama is going to have to win such a landslide that the Republican cheating can't determine the outcome. He has what it takes, but he's going to need us in the streets, on the phones and at the polling stations, working to make sure everyone's vote is counted.

"Maybe we who support Obama are fools to believe this fairy tale, this myth, this wishful dream will continue, that it will not be shattered this fall. Maybe audacious heroes truly don't exist who can triumph against the odds. Maybe no one can do the improbable in this cynical world of ours, but therein lies the hope we hold."

The last time I felt this passion (passage above) for a presidential candidate was in 1970, when I was a young teenager, and his name was Bobby Kennedy.

I have been a Hilllary Supporter. I don't need heroes, or a fairy tale, or someone charismatic who presides against the odds. I am very sad Hillary is facing defeat because she makes a good, solid party president, one I can depend on.

Obama as president scares me. Don't know if I can depend on it. Perhaps I've seen too much.

He actually showed he trusted them to think, to act, to make change happen.

This is the part that bothers me. Not about what you said, or Obama. Its that those, like the nay sayers "He is all talk, no substance" and they dont understand what he is saying because they do not know how to THINK, and ACT, and understand the result that happens.

So many so "higher-than-thou" people keep asking..."well, HOW are you going to make the U.S. a better place?", and I understand the actual question, but Obama could never give these people a answer they would understand.

Presidents and government CAN NOT MAKE YOUR EVERY DAY LIFE BETTER. They(he, Obama) cannot all of sudden inflate your bank account. Only YOU can. And they dont see that.
All these complaints, bitching and moaning about how sucky their life is...come on...the rest of us dont live in Fairy Tale land either. But they swear we do because WE havent given up yet. Because we can still listen.
Because we dont give a shit if you let me go hunting for deer or not. Because WE dont give a shit if you pray in a Mosque, Church, Temple or Tabernacle Their are bigger things at stake. \

There are bigger things at stake.

And they all start with you and your family. Not with who is in the White House.

All this black vs white stuff is retarded. Black people(this is imo) understand how a majority or in a generalization the thoughts/fears of rural white america. We got over that shit a long time ago.
They need to take a book out of our page and GET OVER IT. Do you. Do what makes your family get to the next level(legally....some of us). If everyone helped themselves and THEN helped the next man/woman the country would be a better place. And Obama can set us on the right track to do that.

There isnt a "policy" in the world that can do that. Only another Human.

The fact that you call this a "fairy tale," "myth," and "wishful dream" has me worried that you don't understand what Obama is doing. Of COURSE if you see it all as the candy-coated perfection implied in those words, you'll be disappointed.

Many of Obama's supporters are already quite aware that he is human, he is fallible, he is a politician, he will have to compromise. Why not?

The point is that he is also a LEADER. He has a consistent vision (a good one of a diplomatic America which offers equal opportunity for ALL its citizens) which doesn't change significantly from one month to the next. He has the ability to communicate it. He has the wisdom to ask Americans to participate in making headway--not fixing everything with a snap of the fingers, but starting us in the right direction.

That's more than enough for me.

good luck with that

eh, Obama has no accomplishments really to speak of that can't be attributed to his checking the AA box.

well, a few more well considered thoughts on affirmative action. Certainly, I would not compare African-Americans to monkeys. Let's take for example the bar exam. THERE IS NO WAY A MONKEY COULD PASS THE BAR EXAM. End of discussion. Now let's look at the bar passage rate for Howard University's law school. It has averaged around 50% for years, some years dipping below 50%. Compare that to a third-tier state school like U of Idaho, where the bar passage rate is about 85%. Clearly, there is a pattern here. Let's examine the numbers:

Monkeys: 0%
AA elite: 50%
Potato farmers: 85%

Now there is no way for monkeys to improve their bar passage rate. However, for AAs, it's not genetis, IT'S INCENTIVES. Affirmative action and its accompaniaments are a system of perverse incentives actually. There is no incentive to excel or to perform well on tests that test problem-solving ability. There is every incentive to wear a FUBU sweatshirt and say dumb ignorant shit, pretending that it's cutting edge cultural theory, and to engage in empty pathetic exercises like exchanging Kwanza cards.

Solution: easy, just let AAs compete on an open playing field, like everyone else. I'm betting they could handle it.

If DNC inflicts this neophyte on us, I'm all tuned out.