Keith Pearen Endorses Barack Obama for President

I went to see Barack Obama at his rally in University of Denver this morning. The place was packed! The official estimate was 14,000 - 18,000 with almost half in overflow auditoriums. I managed to get great seats in the main auditorium right behind all of the media. It was by far the rowdiest political rally I have been to and I was quite impressed by seeing Obama in person. Obama was introduced by none other than Caroline Kennedy who invoked the memory of her father as a unifier for the America. Obama's speech stayed pretty much along the lines I have come to expect from seeing him debate and stump on TV.

Change and unification continued to be the primary themes. There were a couple of things about today's speech that stood out to me. First, Edwards withdrew from the race today and Obama had nothing but praise for his former rival. He devoted a significant amount of time saying that he will carry out the primary foundation of the Edwards platform, including education and health care for poor working class Americans as well and getting corporate lobbyists out of Washington. This was a blatant attempt to lure former Edwards supporters and it was great to hear some of my favorite aspects of Edwards' platform included in Obama's.

Second, Obama clearly made two cases for his cause over Hillary's without mentioning her by name. His argument that we need a candidate that will not unify the Republican party against us particularly appealed to me. The Bush/Cheney administration has unified a majority of the country firmly against them and the next Democratic administration can learn from this mistake.

"That's how Democrats will win in November and build a majority in Congress," he said. "Not by nominating a candidate who will unite the other party against us, but choosing one who can unite this country around a movement for change."

Obama also came back to the fact that he was against the second Iraq war back in 2002 and outlined a plan to end the war. he was clearly referring to Hillary when he said, "It is time for new leadership that understands that the way to win a debate with John McCain, or any Republican who is nominated, is not by nominating someone who agreed with him on voting for the war in Iraq, who agreed with him in voting to give George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran,"

Obama finished by blasting the current administration for being, "Strong and Wrong" and pledged to be "Strong and Right." I am pretty excited that the Democratic National Convention will be held here this summer.