06.02.06

For the Love of O’Bama

Posted in personal, miscellaneous, politics at 10:55 pm by misstyrios

First, yes, I realize that his name is Senator Barack Obama, not “O’Bama,” but here in Boston, we like to give things an Irish twist whenever possible. And since I would like to advocate opening this city (and every city, town, and village in the country) to this man and his ideals, I would like to give him a little hometown flavor as a token of love.

Today, my younger brother graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, at which Sen. Obama was the keynote speaker. By a series of fortuitous connections, my family got to sit in the second row VIP section with Deval Patrick, the equally fantastic gubernatorial candidate here in Massachusetts. If these two men could lead the country with a 1-2 punch, I would be in bleeding heart heaven. Luckily, the two men are fast friends. And both have loveable senses of humor: yesterday, Patrick proclaimed that he wanted to win “every single vote on every single ballot” in the election for governor and Obama wrote a tongue-in-cheek epistle to comedian Stephen Colbert, who was delivering the commencement speech at Knox College, where Obama had spoken last year:

Before you deliver your remarks in front of literally millions fewer
people than you would at say, a nationally televised political
convention, I’d like to offer you a few words of advice. First, I know
you’re fond of your Peabody Awards, whatever those are, but I’d
recommend not bringing them. The students at Knox are down to earth and
not impressed by materials possessions like my Grammy Award for Best
Spoken Word Album.

Second, use hand sanitizer after the Pumphandle. Lots of germs there. I
cannot stress this enough.

And finally, don’t forget to bring the Truth. I’d recommend putting it
in your carry-on bag rather than in your checked luggage. O’Hare Airport
is notoriously unreliable.

Obama gave a truly perfect commencement speech and demonstrated why every other hopeful bleeding heart in this country is overly anxious to see him skyrocket in his political career. He spoke of never, ever ceasing to be amazed at the world and - most near and dear to my public defender heart - about taking the path that others may frown upon. He spoke of graduating from Columbia University (where I also happened to graduate from) and, rather than going to Wall Street as so many of his classmates, he set his heart on becoming a “community organizer,” ending up working for an organization of churches in an impoverished Chicago neighborhood for $12,000 a year. It may sound like typical commencement idealism, but it was the way he spoke those words that made me well up (part of that is also attributable to the fact that my little brother was graduating, of course). And it is that power, coupled with that true idealism, that makes Obama the amazing politician that he is. So here’s to hoping - Obama in ‘08 (or ‘12 or whenever).

So don’t let people talk you into the safe thing. Listen to what’s in you and decide what it is that you care so much about that you’re willing to take a chance.

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