Unlike Republicans living in storybook-land, Democrats know that terrorism cannot be defeated like the standing army of a sovereign state. John McCain speaks of victory now, but future generations of potential terrorists are being trained from infancy - and will come into action year after year from scattered origins to sacrifice their lives to kill. McCain's strategy will require indefinite mobilization, eventually exposing generations of American boys and girls to a military draft, running our nation into bankruptcy, and increasing the determination of those who sow the seeds of terrorism. The 19th and 20th Century paradigm of war will not protect us from those who do not march or surrender in formation either in place or in time. Unfriendly nation states like Iran and double-dealing ones like Pakistan, on the other hand, tend to be pragmatic rather than bent on self-destruction to make their point. How do we fight the evil of crime? Not by looking for an assembled army to defeat in battle but by persistence, vigilance, and precision, detecting and pursuing those who plan and execute crimes, at the same time using intelligence to reduce the conditions for crime and criminals to develop.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are each educated in the law, unlike McCain and Palin who have minimal formal education for leadership of a modern state. Obama and Biden will use wisdom and insight to defuse tensions in the world which nourish the evils of hatred and terror. John McCain is neither scholar nor thinker. His answers are too simplistic for a complex world and his words too few to even engage Pastor Rick Warren in conversation. The greater your knowledge and understanding, the less certain you are of simple answers. Barack Obama is more than a skilled orator: behind his eloquence is an exceptional intellect. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. His thoughtful, balanced, disciplined mind is far beyond what the GOP ticket promises. McCain's team would have us believe that the adult life of this 47 year-old as a lawyer, scholar, teacher, advocate for the common American and champion for "the least of us", lawmaker and constitutional law expert counts for nothing. Obama will lead us from the philosophy of governing by which Republicans have dragged America down for nearly three decades, a philosophy which nothing that John McCain has said contradicts. The Republican elite counts on Americans to distrust anyone who is smarter than average because big business is prepared to tell a Republican President what it wants done. We need only look at the last eight years to see the fruits of voting for mediocrity.

McCain is not eager to discuss the issues. The Supreme Court is just one Scalia, Alito, Roberts or Thomas (John McCain's model Justices) away from thrusting our nation into decades of debilitating political warfare, divided between States where a human life does not by law begin when two cells combine and States where John McCain's simplistic parody of omniscience results in closet abortions for frightened runaway girls and poor women, performed under terrifying conditions. Well-to-do Republicans will send their daughters to Sweden, content with McCain*s onslaught against unions and minimum wage; against regulations for healthy conditions in the workplace, the air we breathe, water we drink and food we eat; against universal health care; against the protections Democrats have always worked for on behalf of ordinary American families. McCain's "free-market" solution to the high cost of health insurance and millions of uninsured is to push employees off employer-provided plans and subsidize insurance companies providing policies to individuals and families. McCain and Palin "put country first" only if that means doing the bidding of big business and insurance companies.

It is time for Americans to see what a Democratic President and Congress will do to restore America's infrastructure, bring prosperity for all Americans, recover our principles of equality and fairness, and regain America's integrity and vision on the world stage. Barack Obama is extraordinarily gifted to lead our nation with vision and intelligence that surpass the worn and outdated formulas and clichés of his opponent. Obama has inspired millions by his substance, sensitivity and breadth of human understanding, as Americans were inspired forty years ago by Martin Luther King and John and Robert Kennedy. He has ably stepped into their shoes. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have dedicated themselves to a better America and we should welcome their leadership.