Obama's Vision for America

We should not lose sight of the fact that the most fundamental vision of the Founding Fathers of our country was to have a democratic form of government. Abraham Lincoln (the most famous of Republican Presidents) best described democracy as "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." For that government to be "by the people," however, requires that the people decide who shall be their leaders. We, the electorate have chosen Barack Obama to be our leader for the next four years because he has articulated his vision of the US and the path to achieve it better than that of his opponent.

Only time will tell if President Obama deviates from the original promise of change he gave the people that elected him. Over half of us know now, however, that the GOP has lost its vision – that became evident through their scare tactics during the presidential campaign. The GOP tried to campaign on values not vision; not so much their own values but pointing up a lack of values that took the form of flag lapel pin, place of birth and lack of love of country accusations aimed at Barack and Michelle Obama. When that didn’t work more serious accusations of “redistribution of wealth, socialism, terrorist pal” were all hurled at Senator Obama in hopes that at least one would stick before the voters made their choice on November 4th. What the GOP campaign lacked, however, was any original idea that resembled a vision of America’s future.

The historic choice that was made by a majority of voters last Election Day wasn’t historic because it put an African-American in the Oval Office – history was made when a majority of the electorate came to the realization that vision trumps values and voted accordingly.