Mark February 10 in your calendar people. Why?
And that’s why I [Barack Obama] wanted to tell you first that I’ll be filing papers today to create a presidential exploratory committee. For the next several weeks, I am going to talk with people from around the country, listening and learning more about the challenges we face as a nation, the opportunities that lie before us, and the role that a presidential campaign might play in bringing our country together. And on February 10th, at the end of these decisions and in my home state of Illinois, I’ll share my plans with my friends, neighbors and fellow Americans.
While I was watching Barack Obama addressing at the DNC in Boston on TV long ago, I thought he was the star of the day. I still remember of him speaking something to the effect of “there is no red state, there is no blue but there is a United States of America.” That, as an non-American living in America during the 2004 election, moved me a lot. I thought, if only Malaysia has a politician like him that unites us all, instead of driving a wedge through us all.
p/s – sharing is good. The Obama speech at the DNC that touches the no red, no blue state:
Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
Beautiful, is it not?