Kerry’s speech

Last night I was not able to watch John Kerry’s acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention but I did listen to it on radio. Listening and watching are very different experiences. I did not get to see the body language, the people on stage, the pumping arms of the delegates on the floor, the whole bravado instead I just got to listen.

I thought Kerry did a great job. He told us about himself, he told us some of his ideas on how to close this ugly chapter of Iraq in our history, he talked about his vision for health care, his vision for economic strength and he talked about his values. He presented himself as compassionate, caring, intelligent, thought provoking and someone truly committed to making America a place where we can be proud of being Americans. A very different vision from the one George Bush presented four years ago and executed on over the past four years.

There are a lot of undecided voters. That is interesting to me since I am such a decisive person. Are these people undecided on who to vote for or not to vote at all. I sat on a board awhile ago and the conversation was whether or not we should keep our CEO for another year and just let his contract run out or should we just let him go now so we can look for new direction immediately. The fact that we were actually having that conversation means that he should leave now. How could we hem and hem about someone for a year when we all knew that what we wanted was new direction. Better now than later..no? I think about this when I think about undecided voters. If you are unhappy with what you have, then you have a choice to put someone new into the job and if you don’t like that person, you have another choice again in 4 years. That is one of the many things that make this country great. If you don’t vote, you are missing out on being part of a political process that has continued to make this country grow in new directions every 4 years.

One of my readers emailed me yesterday about my post on the Control Room. I wrote about our military bombing the media stations in Bagdad and how unAmerican that was. The reader was from Canada. She pointed out that it wasn’t unAmerican because that is what America does these days. It was undemocratic. She is probably right. It disheartens me to realize that people living outside the US has that perception whether right or not of what America has become. That is not the America that I believe in. That is not the America that I grew up in. That is not the America that stands on the values of Democracy. That is George Bush’s America. Quite frankly, I do not want to be from that America.

If you even have the slightess uncertainty about the way this Administration has taken this country, then place your vote this fall for change. I have always been a Democratic and would have voted for John Kerry no matter what but last night’s speech gave me a different perspective. I want to vote for John Kerry this fall because I believe not only will he be a better leader, he will be an excellent President.