_Because this blog is about reaching out to people across the nation, I am trying my best to be both apolitical and secular.  Blogs nowadays tend to be the pulpits for anyone and everyone who can make themselves heard.  That means that blogs are seen as political or religious devices.  My intention with the Scene is to create a place where people can reach each other.  Simple.

_Still, The United States is entering its most historic and its most exciting election ever.  Facing off are two candidates, one that clearly represents the policies of typical American politics, and one that represents a complete facelift to those policies.  Some people want the typical, some people want a facelift.  That’s fine.

_However, this blog is about reaching out to people.  And so, I am sorta forced to back a candidate who has shown exceptional skill in doing just that.  Before I go off on a long-winded, redundant post, I feel the need to link you to this wonderful Baltimore City Paper article that came out yesterday. I will touch on what this article has to say, but the sentiments are the same and bear repeating.

_It is a common sentiment in American politics that all politicians are liars. Just on Tuesday, in my Psychology lab, we were talking about different types of intelligences. When we came to Interpersonal intelligence, which is the ability to read and interact with others, one of my classmates said “Conmen have that intelligence.” Another said “Politicians have that intelligence.” And then someone piped up and said “We already said ‘Conmen’.” All politicians, of course, are liars and cheats. That is a view that I grew up with, but is, like so many ides I grew up with, falling apart.

_The reason it is falling apart is Barack Obama. The Republicans have decried him as having a lack of executive experience because before becoming the junior senator for Illinois, he worked as a “community organizer.” At first this attack seemed to stick. No one really seemed to know what it is that a community organizer does, much less if it gives them any qualifications to lead. Until they started to find themselves a part of a growing community of Obama supporters.

_There is a reason that the Obama Nation, as it has come to be known, is working: it’s not really about Obama. It’s about We the people. The Obama campaign has proven time and time again that its purpose is not to run against McCain, but to reach out to the college students, their parents, their aunts and uncles and their friends. The Obama campaign has proven time and time again that the work of a “community organizer” can be expanded to include the community of the entire country.

_I could say that I endorse Obama or that I hate McCain or vice versa. The simple truth is that when it comes down to it, the world is too small not to reach out to others. The internet has seen to that. If we look at the two campaigns we find one that has made no attempt to reach across the country (much less party lines), and one that has spent its entire life-span doing so. That the latter, which I plan to vote for, is Obama’s campaign, is coincidental.

_So we must ask ourselves: Can we bring ourselves to vote for a mere “community organizer” who has turned the entire nation into an organized community? Can we bring ourselves to believe in the campaign of a man who is not only running on a message of hope and change, but is running with such strong sincerity in that message that we cannot help but feel it? Can we bring ourselves to vote for a man who has awakened hundreds of thousands of otherwise apathetic voters through a 21st century-style message of awareness and outreach that makes the other campaign look floundering and outdated at best?

_The answer comes to me quickly: Yes we can.

- Kid