Caroline Kennedy

I've always had a special admiration for Caroline Kennedy. We were born the same year. I have been blessed with a father who is still living and I have always felt for the girl who lost hers so young, and under such horrible circumstances. I've long admired her ability to grow up to be a normal functioning person having survived so much public scrutiny, and with all that family's trauma and tragedy.

In her op-ed piece in yesterday's NYTimes, Kennedy wrote "Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today." And it was while looking for that inspiration and hope that she found her candidate in Obama. It is a remarkable piece from a woman who has not often shared her feelings about her father with the public (and isn't that such a refreshing change from someone like Spears who drags us through her life 24/7?).

She continued, noting that:

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible. . . .

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

I have voted too many times for the candidate because the other guy was worse, or would be worse. How many times have we voted for candidates not because we loved who they were and what they stood for - but because we feared or despised the ones they ran against? Aren't you tired of that as well?

I don't pretend to suggest that everyone else feels this way about Obama. But what I do want to suggest, what I would like to INSIST ON here is this. Look at the candidates, sure some are falling like flies, but there are still good ones out there. Look at the candidate and find that one who will inspire you. Find the one that makes you want to vote for him (or her) by inspiring you, by letting you dream of a better world. Above all things, find that candidate who you would vote for readily - and not because the other guy would be worse.

And maybe, just maybe, in January 2009 we'll see something pretty special in the White House. A president we can actually be proud of. One we can believe in.

And wouldn't that be something.