I've amassed a large folder of links to election-related articles that I've enjoyed over the past few months. Some of these articles have challenged my understanding of certain issues. Others, like the Siglo 21 endorsement, struck me for their depth of feeling. I wanted to share a few of these with you. I think it's clear from my selections that I endorsed Barack Obama but I also want to call attention to Senator John McCain's concession speech. I thought it was incredible--gracious, kind, respectful.
The Poetry of Barack Obama (via NYT)
Obama, Poet by Rebecca Mead
Harold Bloom, who in fifty-three years of teaching literature at Yale University has had many undergraduate poems pressed hopefully upon him said, when reached by telephone in New Haven last week, that he was not familiar with Obama’s oeuvre. But after studying the poems he said that he was not unimpressed with the young man’s efforts—at least, by the standards established by other would-be bards within the political sphere.
The Candidate by William Finnegan
People in Illinois seem largely unaware of Obama’s long, annealing trip into their midst, although they often remark on his unusual calm. Now forty-two and a state senator, Obama emerged, in March, from a raucous primary as the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate. In a seven-person field, he received a remarkable fifty-three per cent of the vote—he even won the “collar” counties around Chicago, communities that supposedly would never support a black candidate. And everyone recalls that, as the votes were being tallied at his headquarters on Election Night, he seemed to be the least agitated person in the place.
Our Support to Barack Obama (Periódico Siglo 21)
For Siglo21, the candidacy of Barack Obama means the freedom and equality made flesh and blood in a political leader.
That only has the meaning of a beautiful season to live, and we want to be here to live it, including, being able to narrate it.
John McCain's Concession Speech
I urge all Americans ... I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.
Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.
President-Elect Barack Obama, Victory Speech
Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House (note: referring to Civil War president Abe Lincoln) a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, 'We are not enemies, but friends ... though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.' And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.
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