okay, I'll take another stab at this. =) You don't have to be convinced if you don't want to be, but here's four parts of the real earth substance that I'm basing my support on, for you or anyone interested:

1. He was a community builder in Chicago before he went to law school, and became involved in politics. He has experience living and community-building in some of America's poorest communities. And he may be rich for a black man in America, but he still poor by politician's standards. In other words, he doesn't have the track record of being rich and out of touch that so many politicians have out there right now. (And Charley Rose too with his comments about school teachers making 2G. Criminey!) For me that's a good thing.

which leads me to

2. The Coburn-Obama Transparency Bill. You can look this up. He co-sponsored it, and I think it's a good indication of the kind of government he's in favor of. Good-bye Dick Cheney government locked doors. This bill forces the government to create a database published on the internet that shows where all federal tax dollars go so the public knows when they're buying $780 hammers for Halliburton. For a junior Senator, again, this shows leadership and integrity.

3. Along exactly the same lines the no more free lunch decision by the ethics Committee, which John Edwards mentioned at the debate. Obama helped to change the rules of Washington so that lobbyists can't pay $500 for someone's expensive steak dinner and then wait for their pay-off in government pork. Well, they can still hope for a pay-off from a politician, but this way the politicians have to buy their own lunch, and vote, we hope, the way they see fit.

4. The attacks on Obama amount to mud-slinging, but they haven't found the mud that sticks. For example, Clinton saying that he has no experience as if his eight years in the Illinois legislature were the same as sitting on his hands and whistling Dixie doesn't hold up. If Clinton is claiming 35 years of experience, she's counting her days working as a lawyer back in Arkansas, which is fine, but by the same standards, Obama has 12 years in elected public office under his belt. He's not quite the newborn babe her camp is making him out to be.

I could go on. Like about the fact that Clinton went after him for flip-flopping on the Patriot Act, when first, she herself voted for the Patriot Act twice, in it's original form under the Republican Congress, and again, when Obama and other Democrats signed on to a *revised* copy of the act that placed some limitations on the original bill. Attacking Obama from this angle shows Clinton must be struggling to find issues to hit him on.

He has more integrity--between what he says and what he does then any of the other candidates including Edwards who may give speeches that are better than Obama's, but he has not really proven what he can do given his last campaign for the vice presidency, or his work in the Senate. His political record so far doesn't show him bringing people together and getting things done, as Obama's does both in the Illinois legislature, and in his four years so far in the Senate.

You can disagree, but I just wanted to point out some (there's more if you just look for it) of the evidence that's out there on Obama's side, and why those of us supporting him aren't just taking an Obama chill pill and grooving on it. We really think that he's more likely to bring change, cliche as it might sound, to Washington than any of the other politicians trying to ride on his buzzwords' coattails...I mean Kuscinich endorsed him in Iowa. That says something about Obama's style of politics as well. (I know you're worried about Lieberman, but the fact that Obama is friends with Lieberman doesn't mean that they agree on politics. Remember when Bill Clinton was friends with Newt Gingrich? Being friends with people you don't agree with is an asset to governing...if you want to know a politician Obama admires, look up Harold Washington from Chicago. In his book, Obama cites Harold Washington as his primary reason for moving to Chicago in the first place, and also why he first decided to run for public office.) Consider all of this put together, and you'll understand why people are supporting him with their heads and not (only) their passion.

aiiee..

I think you have a good point! I live in a blue state but have Republican friends and neighbors. I'll never agree with them on some of the things (including crimes) Washington Republicans have done under Bush, but it's not fair to paint everyone with the same brush. And quite a few Democrats (ahem) went along with some of these Republican schemes, even fighting for them, so it hardly feels fair to ONLY blame the Republicans now, that it's an election year.