Vote Barack Obama

On this Monday before Election Day, I will spend my day like so many others this past month, canvassing neighborhoods to persuade undecided voters, and knocking on doors to get out the vote. Thanks to similar efforts of tens of thousands of other field organizers and more than 1.5 million volunteers nationwide, Senator Barack Obama will be elected to as the 44th president of the United States.

I predict it will be a sweeping electoral victory of 356 electoral votes, including southern states like Virginia and North Carolina that have not voted a Democrat into the White House since the 1968 and 1976 respectively. He will win by small margins in Ohio and Florida, and also take Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and North Dakota. He will also win convincingly in every state John Kerry won in 2004. I believe he will finish with a 4.5% popular vote margin.

The OhioSuprise Electoral Prediction. Map courtesy of realclearpolitics.com.

The major networks will probably be cautious; they are still reeling from their mistakes in 2000. But whenever they are ready to declare Barack Obama the winner of Virginia (most likely 7:00 p.m., as soon as polls close) I will be ready to call the election for Barack Obama.

While Sen. Obama’s victory will not be be a landslide on the scale of Nixon in 1972 or Reagan in 1980, it will be more profound. The political divisions in the United States have grown more bitter and more deeply entrenched in the past two decades. Barack Obama, as the first black president of the United States is poised to be a transformational leader who can unify the county and bring important changes to the economy, health care, energy, education, and foreign affairs.

This has been a long, personal, journey. On September 11, 2001, I lived in a loft just five blocks north of the World Trade Center. I witnessed the attacks firsthand and fled my home as the towers fell. I supported my country’s invasion in to Afghanistan the following month to overthrow the Taliban, who had harbored those people who attacked us.

But I opposed President George W. Bush as he set his sights on Iraq. I believed it would embroil us in an open ended conflict, with an enormous financial and human cost. I watched as our president recklessly squandered a tremendous opportunity to harness the world’s support to elevate America’s leadership in the world.

In October 2002 a little know Illinois state senator, Barack Obama, courageously spoke out against the impending war in an eloquent speech that would later help define his political ascendancy. Some critics dismiss this, claiming he was not really risking anything since he was not yet in the Federal government.

But they are missing the mark, and ignoring the historical context. While seemingly every political figure, including Hillary Clinton, was lining up behind President Bush’s war, Barack Obama stood against it. His position was not rooted in some universal anti-war ideology. Rather, it was based on his judgment that it would harm this country’s long-term strategic interests.

That speech really got my attention. And so I was thrilled when he ran for the United States Senate in 2004 and have been touting him as the future of the Democratic party ever since. So imagine my excitement when in July 2007, I had the opportunity to meet Sen. Obama at a small fundraiser in Brooklyn.

At the meet-and-greet, we spoke briefly about my cousin who was an elementary schoolmate in Hawaii, and I shared my 9/11 story with him. I told him I planned to raise a little money and do a lot of volunteer work on the ground especially toward the last few months of the election. He thanked me. But then I said, “there’s one thing I want to ask of you, Senator.” He asked what that was. I said “Win.” He gave me the big Barack Obama smile and promised to do his best. We’ve each kept up our ends of the bargain.

So here I am in Cincinnati with just 36 hours to go. There’s a lot of work to do today. In addition to the daytime canvasses, I plan to head out late tonight to participate in the quadrennial removal of dirty tricks literature (“All Democrats Vote Wednesday”) from the poor and minority neighborhoods where it always appears on the eve of Election Day.

I encourage everyone to join me by making some calls and knocking on some doors today in support of this campaign. But the most important thing you can do, no matter in which state you live, is vote for Barack Obama. And while you’re at it, please take some friends and family with you.