The Weather Underground Velvet Girls

I have remained cautiously quiet on the blog about the presidential race, so far. There has been one current issue that is getting me off my duff to actually blog about. The issue has been beaten into the media by the McCain campaign. McCain has recently been robocalling, which basically means a robot dials all the phone numbers in its database and plays a recorded message. The message is that Obabma "palls around with terrorists". Additionally, McCain and Palin have been making the same arguments on the stump.

Here's the background. Barack Obama and John Ayers served together on a board on issues surrounding education. The board was for the Annenberg Foundation, which is one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the country. Mr. Annenberg was the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James for the Reagan administration. For laymen, that's what the Ambassador to the United Kingdom is officially called. So, Annenberg was a Republican. Also serving on the same board with Mr. Ayers were many other Republicans, including the president of Northwestern University, which Obama pointed out during the last debate. Mr. Ayers was apparently part of a group called the Weather Underground that during the 1960's practiced domestic terrorism to try and end the Vietnam War. He apparently took a different direction later in life that he was nominated and elected to serve on a Republican board focusing on education. McCain's insinuation is that because Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers, he must therefor share his same values in all respects. The classic guilt by association.

I want to share my own personal perspective on this issue. I recently completed serving on my local community's board on issues revolving around redevelopment. I was privileged enough to serve as the Chair in the final year of my term on the board. I served with about 20 other people from the community, both business leaders and residents. I enjoyed working with these people who shared a passion on making a difference and donating their valuable time toward forwarding our common goals for the community that we all love.

With all due respect to the people with whom I served, I don't really know them all that well, beyond, obviously the issues that we were working on together. For all I know, they could have been convicted felons. I doubt it, but my point is, as a member of this board, am I expected to do personal background checks on everyone that I serve with, in case I might want to run for higher office (which I don't by the way)?

Honestly, Bill Ayers himself could have come up to me on my first day on my board and said, "Hi, I'm Bill Ayers, from the Weather Underground." My response probably would have been, "Was that the group that had the song It's Raining Men or Sweet Jane?" And that brings me to my next point. I think you have to be over 45 to know who the Weather Underground even are. I can honestly say that I've never heard of these people before this campaign. Barack Obama was 8 years old when this group was active. I don't really remember who was active when I was 8 years old; do you?

When are we going to stop fighting the Vietnam War? I will share with you that I am just south of 40 years of age and the Vietnam War and the baggage that goes with it, means nothing to my generation. You baby boomers and older, really need to get past this. It's beyond old. We have so many problems facing us as a country, the wars, the economy, etc. I can't believe we have to go back to the 60's to conjure up old problems.

Ultimately, this smacks of desperation from the McCain campaign and the Republican that want this brought up. I am disappointed, frankly. I voted for John McCain in 2000. I thought he would run a better campaign for this. To see it come to this is a let down because I thought that he was better than this. I didn't like it when Bush's campaign took similar tactics in 2000 against McCain and I don't like it now. This tenuous guilt by association is petty and stupid.

For this and many other reasons, some of which ARC has articulated in his posts, I am voting for Barack Obama. It's time for a new generation to lead. Whatever conclusion you come to, please vote on November 4th.