Why I Support Barack Obama

Hey Loyal Fans (do I still have any? I haven't written in three months..).Vermont2Peru2NewYork here

This week (this three months!), the blog gets political. Un Abrazo para todos! 

I am not a media commentator; I am not an expert on presidential elections. I am quite simply a concerned citizen, who can no longer remain silent. I am 24 years old.

I am part of that elusive young voters block aged 18-29. Mostly we stay at home and play x box on elections. However, in 2008 we showed up and rocked the vote. And we can do it again. Tonight I urge my generation to reclaim the Yes We Can Attitude of 2008. This, just like 2008 is a time for hope.  It is also a time to reflect of where our hope four years ago has brought us to today:

Yes we can promised Barack in 2008. Yes he did, saving the auto industry in 2009.

Yes we can promised Barack in 2008. Yes he did, repealing the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law in 2010.

Yes we can promised Barack in 2008. Yes he did in 2010 passing the landmark Affordable Care Act, guaranteeing the basic human right of healthcare for nearly every citizen of the United States of America.

Yes we can promised Barack in 2008. Yes he did in 2011 ending the war in Iraq.

I recently returned from the Peace Corps where I worked as a youth development volunteer. I worked with teenagers in several preventative health programs. If there are two things Peace Corps taught me it is that: change only comes one day at a time through incredibly hard work, and the world is a lot more complicated than it appears. No one embodies this hard working, nuanced thinking spirit better than Barack Obama. I support Barack Obama because he knows how to get things done – how to create real opportunities for real people so they can achieve their dreams.

I am so proud for all he has worked to accomplish in his first four years. Our country is so much better off than it was a mere 4 years ago. When he entered office our economy was shedding 800,000 jobs a month and we were too many years stuck in two wars. Four years later and we’re way on the other side of a potential second great depression, recently hitting over 30 straight months of job growth. Four years later and we’re heading into a more peaceful future where realism, compromise and compassion, not militarism, form our foreign policy. 

Yes we can again in 2012. And yes we will, yes we will work hard, yes we will create opportunities, yes we will make progress together, every single day of 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and beyond.