This morning, I received an e-mail from a friend of more than 40 years. We went to school together and kept in touch; she’s now head librarian in a northern California community with a husband and grown kids. Her message sounded dire:

“Hi. I had planned to vote for John Edwards on Super Tuesday. Who do I vote for now? Kay”

It’s a fair question. Although I have been giving money to both John Edwards and Barack Obama, I’d pretty much decided to vote for Edwards on primary day. Since midday yesterday, I’ve had to think a lot about who I would vote for on Tuesday. I wrote back to Kay saying I had to vote for Obama, giving her six reasons.

First, I think Obama is very smart, has excellent ideas – although I wish his health care plan went farther than it does – and understands how to get people to work together, which he learned on the tough streets of Chicago's south side.

Second, I think that what he did after graduating near the top of his Harvard Law School class and being editor of the Law Review says a lot about his character and integrity. With those credentials, Obama could have walked into any major New York or Chicago law firm and start earning a quarter-million dollars a year. Instead, he took a $13,000 social services job in Chicago. Many years earlier, Hillary Rodham turned down the same job.

Third, I don't buy the "no experience" argument. He's been in government for 10 years, including the US and Illinois State Senate. That's enough to understand how government works. Dick Cheney had a lifetime of government experience and look what we got. Being president means a lot more than having a three point plan for everything.

Fourth, he is not "all hat and no horse" or whatever the cowboy expression is. In other words, Obama’s critics acknowledge his ability to give amazing, uplifting speeches but claim there's no substance beneath the suit. Read his website - there's plenty of substance and a truly progressive agenda.

Fifth, I've always believed that the real job of a president is to have a vision, set a direction, and then inspire, persuade and lead the country in that direction. In Richard Neustadt's groundbreaking book from the early 1960s, The Power of the Presidency, he wrote that the real power of the office is its ability to persuade. I've sat in a hall listening to an Obama speech and while he talks about specifics – health care, Iraq and Afghanistan, whatever, that don't make TV sound bites – he has a unique ability to "touch" the people listening. To me, he has the ability to give voice to the hopes and needs of the poor the way Bobby Kennedy (and John Edwards) did, the rhetorical passion needed to speak to our greater instincts like Jack Kennedy, and an ability to move people the same way as did Dr. King. That is the very definition of presidential leadership.

And, finally, sixth, as much as I liked Bill Clinton as president, I think the country has had enough of the Clintons already. Well, I have at any rate. Hillary has the capacity to be a great Senator the way Ted Kennedy became a great Senator after he realised he'd never be president. There is nothing wrong with many of her policy positions but I think Hillary would be a disaster as president because she would attract all of the right-wing venom her husband did when he was president. The country's polarisation would continue. It'd be the 1990s all over again.

So on February 5, my vote goes to Barack. When my friend Kay read my reply e-mail, she wrote back with a succinct, “Sold!”

_______

