Continuing our series - Here is why reader Anna is voting for Obama. Thanks Anna - your unedited essay follows. (this pic below is from a campaign event Anna attended).

Obama event pic

These three words encompass all that I love about Barack Obama and his campaign. It is this affirmation of the power of ordinary people gathering to do great things that has driven me from Rochester to the streets of Chicago and the snow-swept fields of Iowa. It brought hundreds of volunteers together in a freezing office on Hudson Avenue on Saturday morning, and if we allow ourselves after having been beaten down for so long, to open ourselves up to hope, these three words promise to remake America.

I witnessed the reawakening of hope in the tiny town of Oelwein, Iowa, where I spent two months this summer and another two weeks over winter break (I’m a student at the University of Rochester). Few people realize the impact that Obama’s time as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago had on his political outlook, but we ran a campaign in Iowa that would have made Saul Alinsky proud (Obama was actually working for an organization that Alinsky founded). We were the first campaign ever to have an office in Oelwein, and we organized from the grassroots up. Oelwein’s story held echoes of Rochester and every other part of this country forgotten by Washington. Economically devastated by the closing of the railroad yards in the late ‘50s, Fayette County had one of the highest percentages of people on welfare in the country and a raging meth problem. It was a town of the elderly, where those working-age people unwilling to leave the soil their families had lived on for generations were woefully underemployed. Many of these people had simply given up hoping that anything would change. Then came Barack Obama.

He moved Geri Punteney, who I met in July when she came into our office out of curiosity and broke down sobbing when she told us about her brother who couldn’t get health insurance because he had been diagnosed with stage four cancer. He stoked a fire in the inimitable Jens Nielsen, who had been a staunch Republican all his life until his grandson, Seth, was killed in Iraq. And his call to action was heard by Justin Ledesma, age 19, preparing to leave for military boot camp, who had never participated in politics but threw himself into working for Senator Obama with more vigor than any practiced politico. Instead of the same empty promises that politicians had been making for years – vote for me and I’ll make things better – Obama asked something different – stand up with me and fight like hell to make things better – and they stood up. On caucus night I was so busy handing out voter registration cards to first time caucus-goers that I almost didn’t realize that we had swept my precinct 8 to 5 to 3. I will never forget the card that Lori Garceau, Jens’ daughter gave us the day after the caucuses. Tucked inside was a picture of her son Seth’s grave – over which stood a “Hope” yard sign.

This campaign is about electing a president who will correct the disgrace that the past eight years have been. But Senator Obama has taken this opportunity to do something more, and his campaign has also become about changing the way politics is conducted in this country. Political expediency has never played a role in Barack’s decision making, as was clear when he made a speech in 2002 opposing the war while in the midst of a brutal senatorial primary battle. Throughout this entire campaign, Senator Obama has not taken a penny from PACs, corporations or federally registered lobbyists. Barack has been committed to ethics reform in the in Senate, working with Senator Feingold of Wisconsin on legislation that mandated disclosure of bundling and restricting DeLay-style trips sponsored by lobbyists to, say, go golfing in Scotland But he also hasn’t waited for ethics laws to change, or for his convictions to become safe. Instead, he took a political risk, and made it work, raising more money than any other candidate in the second quarter, and keeping pace with Hillary Clinton throughout the rest of the year.

This is meaningful not only as a gesture. If we are trying to completely revolutionize the way the health care system works, it makes sense to choose someone who has not received millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies and HMOs. If we want to get serious about alternative energy, it makes sense to choose someone who hasn’t taken a single contribution form an oil or coal company. And Senator Obama’s deep belief in the importance of unions – as a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act, and a vocal opponent of the current union-busting NLRB – comes from convictions, not from PAC contributions.

The strength of Barack’s message should not be mistaken for a lack of substance. He has laid out an extensive plan for universal health care, under which every single person in this country will be able to afford coverage, and also a plan to focus on preventative care and public health. I direct you to the Blueprint for Change, because I think I’m already beginning to wear out RT’s welcome. Senator Obama also details a plan to have all combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months of taking office and, as a member of the Senate Veteran’s Affairs Committee, outlines a comprehensive strategy to give veterans the care they deserve when they return home, instituting a zero tolerance policy for homelessness among vets and fully funding the VA (good news for the Canandaigua hospital, among others).
Finally, and importantly to me, Senator Obama makes a call that has not been heard so strongly in a generation – he calls upon America’s young people to serve their country. While many campaigns consider youth organizing a waste of time, the Obama campaign has developed the most sophisticated student organization this country has ever seen. Through Students for Barack Obama and programs like Camp Obama, a five-day organizing training I was lucky enough to attend, they are building the next generation of activists, giving us the tools, and more importantly asking us to stand up and take ownership of our futures. I hope you’ll attend Rochester for Obama’s youth rally on Monday at 4 in Twelve Corners and witness the electricity for yourself.

For me, the choice on Tuesday is between two good Democrats. But the difference is important. It’s the difference between a good president and a truly great one, one who will inspire us and lift us up as a nation for generations. And to those who continue to doubt that change is possible, I speak with the same voice as millions of people across this country– young and old, black, white, latino and asian, when I say yes we can.