Letter: Obama's leadership experience is solid

Letter: Obama's leadership experience is solid



Derek Boyd Hankerson, Former, second vice chairman of the St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee and committeeman.
St. Augustine
Publication Date: 10/15/08


Editor: As a "Republican," with a political science degree, who cut his teeth in government and politics in the Nation's Capitol I will vote for Sen. Barack Obama. My convictions are based in history. The Republican Party was founded in the 1850s by anti-slavery activists. During the 1800s Republican African-Americans were congressmen, senators, lieutenant governors and governors from many southern states with the support of the Republican Party. But, where are they today?

In 1856, the Republicans slogan was "Free soil, free labor, free speech, free men." In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican to win the White House. During the Civil War, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Given this background, please help me find answers to these questions.

How is it, when you grow up in Hawaii raised by your grandparents and a single mother who is Caucasian, you're different?

How is it if your name is Barack, you're a radical and unpatriotic Muslim?

How is it that Obama's leadership experience is challenged when he: spent three years as a brilliant community organizer, became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, created a voter registration drive and registered 150,000 new voters, spent 12 years as a law professor, eight years as a state senator from Chicago representing a district of 750,000-plus people, became the state senate's health and human services committee chairman, spent four years in the United States Senate representing 13 million people and sponsoring 131 bills while also serving on the foreign affairs, environment and public works and veteran's affairs committees?

I will continue to do what is right, and fair regardless of the consequences while giving people chances to make a difference. I am asking that you too do the same.

Derek Boyd Hankerson, Former, second vice chairman of the St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee and committeeman.

St. Augustine