Presidential Endorsement by JC's Tampa Bay Sports Blog

By JC De La Torre

Typically, I stay out of the political discussions and I definitely don't like using my blog space for these types of commentary (and I won't do it often in the future), I am an independent voter, I have no party affliation. To make this somewhat sports related, Barack Obama supports a college football playoff, while John McCain supports more strenuous steroid testing.

With that said I just wanted to announce the following:

JC's Tampa Bay Sports Blog endorses Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States.
Why Obama?

I feel that Obama views on the World are similiar to my own. I agree with his belief that diplomacy is not a dirty word and that we need to have the inner strength and fortitude to be able to talk to our enemies and try to resolve our differences. In the past 8 yrs, the United States became a country of fear and dominance. It became the Evil Empire that many began to hate and want to destroy. I'm not just talking Islamic Extremists, I'm talking about countries that used to be our allies that believe our war doctirines are not Freedom movtivated, but World Domination motivated. The next President has a lot of work to do to repair our foreign relations. I think Obama identifies with those across the world. For the first time in maybe a decade, other countries have hope that America can again become the place of dreams. Just look at the guy in Barcelona, Spain who made a 2 acre Obama portrait.

I agree with Obama's views on the economy. I do believe that trickle down economics and deregulation has led us to the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. I know many are nervous about the "spread the wealth" comment. I believe its being misrepresented by the Republicans (as you would expect) as socialism. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of an egalitarian society. Funny, but to me that kinda decribes the Bush years.

I don't believe Obama feels thats the way to go. There are some equality issues in this country. Comedian Bill Maher held up a chart in is show Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO that showed that 60% of the nation's weath went to the upper 1% of the country. SIXTY PERCENT. How much does you, me, Joe the Plumber, and the rest of the "middleclass" get? 10% of the wealth. Folks, I understand that the rich, the business owners, the stock brokers should have a greater share of the wealth since they take more of the risk while the worker bees get a lesser stake - but 60%? No, there does need to be some distribution of wealth. This should appeal to 99% of the American population.

So how do you achieve this? Repealing the Bush tax cuts and other special tax breaks for the Upper 1 as I call them. Raise their tax burden so that you can lower the tax burden on the other 90% of the country. Stop allowing them to ship our jobs overseas with bad trade deals. Increase goverment regulation so the proposterous bullspit of Bearsterns, AIG, and the other lenders we bailed out will never happen again. These are some of the tent poles of the Obama economic platform. I know the Fear doctrine of the Republicans have said that Obama is a "Tax and Spend" Liberal. Obama has said that 95% of Americans will have their taxes LOWERED, not raised. Further, he proposes to pay for his iniatives with things that should be common sense. Cutting things we don't need. Remember that line in the 1996 Sci-Fi movie Independence Day when they were at Area 51 the President said, "Where do we get funding to support a place like this?" and Julius Levinson, the father of one of the heroes of the movie, said, "What? You really think it costs $10,000 for a hammer, $20,000 for a toilet seat?". Sadly, there's truth in that line. There is a lot of waste in our government - and it needs to be cleaned up. Further, we spend $10 billion dollars a month for a war where we are supporting a country that has a budget SURPLUS. A place where Al Quaida is not headquartered, while taking resources and forces away from our troops in Afghanistan and the border of Pakistan - where Al Quaida is alive and well and is likely where Osama Bin Laden is planning his next strike.

And that's another thing that attracts me to Obama. Senator John McCain says we won't leave Iraq until we have won. Sorry, I thought winning a war was completed once the government of the country your fighting against is toppled, its over. You've won. Saddam Hussein is dead. His republican guard is shattered. We've spent years there trying to help the Iraqis establish their government. Its time. We have too many threats against the United States to continue to prop up a puppet government. The Iraqis need to govern themselves - its THEIR country, not ours.

Finally, I strongly believe that the United States needs to free itself from the dependence on Foreign Oil. While offshore drilling would definitely help with that, I believe if we are to survive as a nation, we MUST invest our time, resources, our energies in alternative fuel resources. Obama is for that, Senator McCain's motto is "Drill, Baby Drill." This is not a problem we can drill our way out of.

There are other things like health care, education, and the foreclosure situation that I also agree on with Obama, but let me last leave you with this. This country is at a crossroads. We need a leader that can inspire and unite our country, repair our relations with our neighbors, have the calm, steady hand in times of crisis, and have the judgement to make the right choices.

Einstien defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. McCain is the same as Bush. He may have once been a maverick, but that maverick sold his soul to the Neo-Conservative wing of the Republican party to win its nomination. The last 8 years have deeply damaged the United States and there is a large reclaimation project in order.

I think Barrack Obama is the best choice to lead us into that recovery.

Which ever candidate you choose, I hope you do take the time to make your voice heard today. Yes, the lines are long and it make take awhile for you to get there - but this is a crucial election and you need to be part of it. Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines.

Thanks, and we now return you to our Sports related thoughts.