Why I support Barack Obama- Angela Severiano

By Angela Severiano

This year's presidential election is without a doubt, one of the most important in our nation's history. When HIPHOPREPUBLCIAN.COM asked me to write a feature on why I choose Obama, I was honored. Not only to share my voice, but also to share the voice and concerns of all Americans who are seeking change. Below I touch briefly on my top reasons for support, as I have watched Senator Barack Obama approach these issues with admiration.

• His election will go a long way to repair the goodwill with our traditional allies that Bush has squandered with his emphasis on unilateral and preventative wars.


• I admire Obama’s commitment to working across party lines, to solve urgent problems that face our entire country, as he did in the Illinois state legislature when he passed the state tax cut


• Senator Obama is intellectually curious, meaning that he does not see all issues in stark terms of black or white. He sees the gray in many complex challenges.


• His comparative youth makes him less wedded to conventional solutions and more willing to see alternatives. This is especially important in achieving energy independence, a goal with which no one seriously disagrees.


• His election will be of huge symbolic importance to people of color in America. Racial healing is much more likely to occur, redeeming one conspicuous stain on American idealism.


• The campaign has shown him to be controlled and measured in his rhetoric, unlike McCain who is way more likely to make an impetuous decision without having thought through its consequences.


• This may sound harsh, but it is something that is real and needs to be addressed. Given McCain's age and medical history, there is a one in six chance that he will not survive for four years.


• Are we ready for President Sarah?


• Obama has refused to vilify our enemies, which makes him much more likely to be successful in negotiating with them when the inevitable crisis arises.


• Obama is much more likely to deliver a health care plan that covers the vast majority of the 47 million Americans who do not have any coverage than the Republicans are; the GOP relies on privatization, misrepresenting it as "choice."

As I support Obama in all of these issues, I must also touch on what I see in him as a person. There is genuine warmth that Obama exudes. When I listen to him speak, I believe him. I consider him wise, noble and sincere and am certain that he truly wants what is best for us, not what is best for him or his ego.I want to close with an excerpt from legendary novelist and editor Toni Morrison's endorsement letter to Barack Obama:

“In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.

When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's citizens as "we," not "they"? Someone who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in the world?

Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.

There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time.”

Our country is in vital need of a visionary leader to change its facing direction. I am convinced that Obama is ready to fill this need.

~Angela was a finalist in Fuse Music Television’s top new artist search for 2008. She has been a regular opener for Funkmaster Flex for his shows throughout the metropolitan area, and her recent collaboration with billboard top ten diva Gia7 on the CD “Dance Floor 2.0”, has been frequently played on Sirius Radio, Sprint Radio, as well as music stations across the nation. Currently a New York City resident Angela volunteers and performs for many charities and non-for profit institutions, including the Center Against Domestic Violence. She is politically active, running fundraisings activities for national, state, and local elected officials.