My Daughter Kathy Calls For Support Of Obama
I'm turning over my blog today to my daughter, Kathy Reich, and an email she has sent to family and friends. Kathy was born in 1971 in Atlanta, Ga. and has been a Californian since she was six months old. Growing up, she traveled with me to numerous countries on my Olympic assignment. She wrote her first published article for the London Times from the Lake Placid Winter Olympics when she was eight years old. A National Merit Scholar, she graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in history at Yale University, where she won the school's Polunin Cup for exemplary character, and at the top of her class at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where she earned a Master's in Public Policy. She worked consecutive college summers for Los Angeles City Legislative Analyst Bill McCarley, the American Civil Liberties Union, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and Lt. Gov. Gray Davis. She was hired by Sen. Dianne Feinstein as an aide the day she got out of the Kennedy School, worked for her three years and is now an executive in charge of pre-school funding for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in Los Altos, California. She is the mother of two small children. Two years ago, when I was critically ill and unconscious, Kathy and her husband brought their children, the youngest then just four weeks old, to Los Angeles for several weeks to help doctors take care of me. To them, and my son, David, who also came to help, I owe my safe recovery.
Here is the e-mail I received from her Saturday night:
Subject: This year, your vote counts. So please, read this email.
I have never in my life written an email like this one. I've always believed, rightly or wrongly, that voting is an intensely personal choice, and I haven't wanted to impose my choices on other people.
But this year, our votes really matter. This year, we finally have the chance to vote for real change in our country. On February 5, I hope that those of you who will be voting in one of the nation's 21 primaries will vote for Senator Barack Obama.
As you know, I have worked in politics and public policy for my entire career. I am more cynical than most people about our political leaders, and about how public policy gets made in this country. Over the past seven years, I have watched in agonized helplessness as corrupt, callous, and venal leaders pulled our nation into a meaningless and destructive war that has diminished America on the world stage, perhaps forever. I have watched as Congress and the President dug a budget hole that will mean a mortgaged and lessened future for my children. I have watched the politics of hate and fear take root in this country and thrive. I have watched our country leave its poor people stranded both literally and figuratively, dying on flooded rooftops. I have watched the Democratic Party wring its hands rather than take action to take back this country.
Enough is enough. If we want our children to grow up in a better world than the one we have made, it is time to elect a bold new leader. Barack Obama is that person.
His nuanced and thoughtful positions on Iraq, health care, immigration, education, and other issues were probably enough to get my vote. But I am writing to my dear friends and family tonight because Senator Obama will bring more to the presidency than good policy proposals. He will bring LEADERSHIP--the first real leadership that our nation has known in many years. He will bring courage, tenacity, and toughness. But most of all, he will bring hope. And the country needs that more than we need anything.
So please, think carefully about your vote on Tuesday. Vote for the person who will move this country forward, not re-live the past. I hope that, when you've really thought about it--and when you've taken the time to read Senator Obama's policy proposals and speeches on www.barackobama.com--you will vote for Senator Obama.
By all means, please also consider a donation to Senator Obama's campaign. Senator Obama raised $32 million last month, and 90% of it came from people who donated $100 or less. It came from people like you. Please take a minute to check out my page and make a donation of any size: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/kathyreich.
A book I read in college defined revolution as "when more people are participating in the event than watching it on t.v." Get off the couch. Donate. Vote. Forward this email. Walk precincts. Buttonhole your friends. Let's elect a great human being to the presidency, for a change. Let's show the world what Americans are made of. Let's be proud to be Americans again.
Kathy
--
From Ken Reich: I would be remiss if I did not pay tribute to the great prescience shown by L.A. Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke in Sunday's paper, giving 17 reasons why the New York Giants would win the Super Bowl. It turns out his prediction was correct. Now, perhaps, he can predict the outcome of the election.
Here is the e-mail I received from her Saturday night:
Subject: This year, your vote counts. So please, read this email.
I have never in my life written an email like this one. I've always believed, rightly or wrongly, that voting is an intensely personal choice, and I haven't wanted to impose my choices on other people.
But this year, our votes really matter. This year, we finally have the chance to vote for real change in our country. On February 5, I hope that those of you who will be voting in one of the nation's 21 primaries will vote for Senator Barack Obama.
As you know, I have worked in politics and public policy for my entire career. I am more cynical than most people about our political leaders, and about how public policy gets made in this country. Over the past seven years, I have watched in agonized helplessness as corrupt, callous, and venal leaders pulled our nation into a meaningless and destructive war that has diminished America on the world stage, perhaps forever. I have watched as Congress and the President dug a budget hole that will mean a mortgaged and lessened future for my children. I have watched the politics of hate and fear take root in this country and thrive. I have watched our country leave its poor people stranded both literally and figuratively, dying on flooded rooftops. I have watched the Democratic Party wring its hands rather than take action to take back this country.
Enough is enough. If we want our children to grow up in a better world than the one we have made, it is time to elect a bold new leader. Barack Obama is that person.
His nuanced and thoughtful positions on Iraq, health care, immigration, education, and other issues were probably enough to get my vote. But I am writing to my dear friends and family tonight because Senator Obama will bring more to the presidency than good policy proposals. He will bring LEADERSHIP--the first real leadership that our nation has known in many years. He will bring courage, tenacity, and toughness. But most of all, he will bring hope. And the country needs that more than we need anything.
So please, think carefully about your vote on Tuesday. Vote for the person who will move this country forward, not re-live the past. I hope that, when you've really thought about it--and when you've taken the time to read Senator Obama's policy proposals and speeches on www.barackobama.com--you will vote for Senator Obama.
By all means, please also consider a donation to Senator Obama's campaign. Senator Obama raised $32 million last month, and 90% of it came from people who donated $100 or less. It came from people like you. Please take a minute to check out my page and make a donation of any size: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/kathyreich.
A book I read in college defined revolution as "when more people are participating in the event than watching it on t.v." Get off the couch. Donate. Vote. Forward this email. Walk precincts. Buttonhole your friends. Let's elect a great human being to the presidency, for a change. Let's show the world what Americans are made of. Let's be proud to be Americans again.
Kathy
--
From Ken Reich: I would be remiss if I did not pay tribute to the great prescience shown by L.A. Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke in Sunday's paper, giving 17 reasons why the New York Giants would win the Super Bowl. It turns out his prediction was correct. Now, perhaps, he can predict the outcome of the election.
Labels: Presidential campaigning
posted by Ken Reich at 12:58 AM
2 Comments:
Paternal pride does not a good column make,and it's obvious daughter Kathy didn't study the nuances of the English language much at the Ivy League schools you duly note that she attended, with honors of course. Unfortunately, she seems to have inherited her daddy's penchant for political platitudes. Sorry, but this isn't good writing.
Change. You would have to scrap most of the current system to bring about real change in this county. The best outcome for this election is that we'll get someone we like more than we like Bush II. Democrat or Republican you're still going be taking it in the shorts -- especially if you are in the working-class -- because we still have to pay for the wars and their after-effects. The other years in which our votes counted were in 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, and 2000. We (the non-elites) missed those boats. I don't have any faith in the people of this country knowing what is in their best interest. "We" "elected" the biggest fucking geek in history -- twice -- and now we want change. It took eight years of Reagan and eight years of Bush II to make people stand up and holler for change. I think the biggest change we are going to get is a really severe recession or even a depression. Sam Zell and all the other elites will be comfy sleeping on their large piles of money while you lose your job and your house. Why? Because you shouted for change only after the damage was done and only after you saw others chanting "ch,ch,ch, change..." on TV. Sweet dreams, melonhead.
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