Sunday, January 27, 2008

I Approve this Political Message...

February 5th is just around the corner, and last week, I found a reason to pick a specific candidate.

I have known for a long time that I would be voting for one of the Democratic candidates, but was having a difficult time deciding between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, for a variety of reasons.

The reason I found was that Obama was the only one of the two candidates that addresses and acknowledges disability issues on his campaign website. To be precise, he has a 9 page PDF position paper which you can read for yourself, found at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/disabilities/. There is also a beautifully captioned video on this page which is worth watching, particularly if you don't feel like reading the position paper.

Vote!

Whatever you do, vote. Whomever you decide to vote for, do it. Particularly in the General Election, come November. More and more states are making it easier to vote by mail, so whether or not it is a hassle for you to get out to the polls physically, you can still vote.

If you're not already registered, it is too late for a lot of the primaries, but register NOW so you can vote in the General Election.

It matters. People with disabilities have issues that are especially meaningful to us that are being discussed widely in this election, particularly the availability of health care. If the millions of people with disabilities ever made a concerted effort to be heard, we would be.

2 comments:

Becs said...

I'm down with that.

Well. Now I know who I'm voting for.

Jennifer said...

I had already decided not to vote for Hillary based on a speech where she talked about "curing and preventing all forms of Autism". As an Autistic person, I don't want to be cured and prevented. It's nice to see Obama mentions disability issues. I also appreciate the fact that in his mention of autism never does he use the words "cure" and "prevent". He's getting my vote.