Why Richardson!

Charley likes to taunt me about posting Fundraising numbers and poll results, instead of ideological substance and issue stances. Today`I share an endorsement from a member of Minnesotans for Richardson. It is more than just Resume hype:

Does he, however, have the forward-thinking, engaging, inspiring ideas that a president elected in 2008 requires? Yes. His energy policy--surely one of the most important national policies, given that it affects both domestic and foreign affairs to an enormous extent--is by far the best of those put forward during this election cycle in that it challenges Americans to both reduce energy consumption where and when it is appropriate to do so, as well as work to produce alternate sources of energy to meet our considerable future needs in ways that are cleaner, safer, and more secure than ever before. The percentages by which he wants to reduce greenhouse gasses as well as our dependence upon foreign sources of oil seem at first daunting, but when one reads the thinking behind them, and when one takes into account the notion that this challenge is akin to putting a man on the moon--something that America performed less than a decade after so many people thought that President Kennedy was setting an impossible goal--one gets the sense that we can come together, as we have done before, to meet this challenge as we have met past challenges, and in doing so renew our innovative, industrious spirit, which is currently stuck in an outdated, fossil-fuel rut.

If we can achieve what Governor Richardson sets out for us to achieve in the realm of energy, which in many ways is at the heart of so much of the world's current strife, surely we can achieve the other necessary goals that the governor has set for us. These goals include moving quickly and unflaggingly toward a health care system that protects the quality of American healthcare while simultaneously extending it to all of our citizens; extracting U.S. troops from unnecessary wars of choice, such as the war in Iraq, that distract everyone in this world from the real problem groups civilization faces, such as al-Qaeda (as well as from the problems of ignorance, poverty, and alienation that help to radicalize entire populations to support such groups); and recognizing that so many problems, both of our own citizens and those of people around the world, stem from the unavailability of a well-rounded, quality education for each and every child that recognizes that good academic outcomes, far from being solely check-marks on a piece of paper, are the product of engaging and innovative academic processes, and for this to happen we must ensure that many of the best and brightest in our society are encouraged to be teachers and encouraged to actually teach--which means inspire and challenge students--as opposed to walk lock-step with the trendy, mediocre-standard-bearing, bureaucratic crowd currently muscling into schools.

That was just the guts, read the whole thing.

Flash