Celebrate Obamaday

Gordon Davidescu wrote this article.

Every year, hundreds of millions of cards are exchanged on February 14th, very frequently coming along with hundreds of billions of pounds of chocolate, stuffed animals, and other such presents.
While these are all lovely ways of expressing sentimentalities, I have a suggestion for you that will be a gift that will keep on giving for the next four years. I’m not referring to a savings bond though that has its own benefits. Rather, I refer to the wonderful gift of donating to the Barack Obama campaign.

Let us start with reviewing the alternative gifts. The first part
involves a card – and there’s nothing wrong with a card. Why not make
this year’s card reflect the upcoming elections and the only Democratic
candidate who will be properly prepared to win the election in
November? You can put something humorous on the inside – a funny comic
like this one:

On the outside, however, you should definitely have a good photo of our man Senator Barack Obama.
There are plenty available and not just because news reports show that Senator Obama is gaining a following amongst women,
something that I’m sure is putting quite a burr in the Clinton
campaign. There are thousands of wonderful photos of Senator Obama that
you could use – or if you, like me, have been to one of the rallies,
you can use one that you have taken.

The best way to turn this political gesture into one that is also
romantic is to express in writing how important your significant other
is to you along with your shared thoughts about the election. Last year
I put it simply on a card I gave out by pasting a photo of Senator
Obama with a small word dialogue above his head saying, “Make sure to
vote for me in 2008!” Though there wasn’t much sentimentality in that,
it got right to the point.

Chocolate – let’s think about it for a moment, shall we? What is
chocolate but a substance without any real substance? What is the
expression – “a moment on the lips, an eternity on the hips?” Even if
you happen to have superb metabolism, what will be with the chocolate
after you are done eating it? All you’ll have is a big box of empty and
nothing to show for it.

There are some plushies that last for years and years but sadly, most
of them end up at some kind of thrift shop – or worse, the garbage –
within a year or two of being given as gifts. Do you want your plush
gift to end up like one of these?
We can go on and on reviewing the gifts that would be of no substance
to the recipient but why should we do that when we can think about a
gift that will have a significant impact on the next four or eight
years of this country?

A year ago, when Senator Obama announced his intention to launch his
presidential campaign, and people were saying that there was no way
that we could get this far, I decided to give a card that said: “Yes,
we can!”
The campaign to elect Senator Obama has been funded entirely from
donations, none of which come from corporate interests or lobbyists of
any sort. The majority of donations that go to the campaign come in
somewhere around the $25-$50 mark and yet less than two days after
Senator Clinton was forced to loan herself five million dollars,
Senator Obama’s campaign raised more than that – all in small
contributions.

If you’re interested in expressing more than a feeling of love for
chocolate or other trite dime store items then it is time to make a
gift of significance on February 14 – or February 15th if you’d prefer
to get some side gifts on clearance – and give to the Barack Obama
movement. Yes, we can.