Have Thoughts on the Key Note?

3 thoughts on “Have Thoughts on the Key Note?”
  1. I know I’ll have bragging rights after the key note address. I’m going to call my brothers who’re always bragging about California and ask, “now isn’t it about time you misguided souls came back home to Illinois?” After all, we have the good sense in Illinois to put someone like Barack Obama within striking distance of the U.S. Senate – that makes me feel hopeful about this state and the country.

    I think that you already have a strong message that resonates with the voters here. So don’t veer from your stump speech – the same issues that are important to us in Illinois are important to people throughout the nation. Continue to avoid the cliches as you usually do and be pragmatic with a little wit mixed in. Talk about the issues that concern most of us – the middle class being squeezed, healthcare, unnecessary tax cuts for the rich, the War in Iraq. etc.

    And continue to give us hope in your speech. After returning from the NAACP convention in Philadelphia I’m still disturbed tht the President was so blatantly divisive. We’re so divided in this country along so many fault lines – political, racial, socio-economic – that I wonder if there is any hope in this country for people to come together.

    You put it so well when in response to Katie Couric’s question about Bush not coming to the NAACP convention, you said that we could disagree without being disagreeable and that it’s important to listen even to those who criticize us. What a great messge for the nation to hear and think about in this highly political season.

  2. I would like to expand the affordable healthcare concept to include emotional healthcare(mental health). The best of emotional healthcare is not a privilege for people of color. The African-Am. concept of emotional healthcare is antiquated at best. Black and Hispanic mental health clinicians are very few and far between. Psychiatric hospitals are filled with people of color w/o culturally sensitive psychiatrists. Emotional health guides wellness and success in life. It is a horror to realize people suffer and die due to poor emotional health…and even poorer treatment if any is received. I am writing as the President of the Board, Coalition of Illinois Counselor Organizations: Central Regional Certification Chair of the American Assoc. of Pastoral Counselors, private practitioner in Hyde Park and most of all a fervent supporter of your U.S. Senatorial campaign. Thank you for your legislative support of emotional health care. Much continued success to you!

  3. First, let me thank you for reviving my sense of hope for the future of this country and indeed the future of my grandchildren. The ?audacity of hope? you called it. I don?t think I realized how desperate I was to have my optimism rekindled, until I heard your words on Tuesday evening. How I wish I had been in that convention hall to hear you in person. I imagine that for the lucky ones who were there?especially those in the audience who have been incredibly disillusioned and indeed frightened by the events of past few years, those twenty-five minutes will lodge indelibly in their memories. Kind of like my memory of standing as an undergraduate outside the University of Michigan Union to hear John Kennedy announce the establishment of the Peace Corps. I’d like to think that what those in that convention hall (and those of us who were television viewers) witnessed will become recognized as a major turning point in Democratic politics, and hopefully in American politics. I have already written a letter to your campaign headquarters saying all this and enclosing a campaign contribution, but I decided it was a good idea to post it also. I live in California, but surely there is some way–though long distance–that I can help ensure your election and your continued success in American politics. I’m hoping you will send some tasks my way.

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