At the end of tonight’s Democratic presidential debate at the University of Texas in Austin, both candidates were presented with the following by CNN’s Campbell Brown:

“A leader’s judgment is most tested at times of crisis. I’m wondering if both of you will describe what was the moment that tested you the most, that moment of crisis.”

Watch this video as Senator Barack Obama focuses on his personal challenges as a child of a single mother and later as an adult taking responsibility for the choices he made. Hillary Clinton’s response draws a standing ovation as she almost tears up placing the focus not on her own life challenges, but on the American heros who are giving their life and limb to serve our country.

Who is ready to lead?

I spent a couple of hours Saturday cleaning up the road leading into our neighborhood while Vince was at work. I filled seven large 55 gallon trash bags full of about seven months worth of other people’s garbage. I say seven months worth because that’s about when Vince and I last cleaned it up.

We’re doers.

A lot of people stopped to thank me, which was awesome. One guy took the trash bags away. Awesome. Another guy stopped and said he had “hoped” him and his son could get out there and do it when it got warm enough. One guy thanked me and told me he had “hoped” the county would do more to keep it clean. It got me thinking a lot about hope and how little people’s hope gets things done. If you think about it, you see the most desperate expressions of hope in some of the worst neighborhoods where I guess everyone is collectively hoping that someone else will get things done and make things better. And hope never gets it done.

Besides the abundance of Marlboro cigarette packs, McDonalds and Taco Bell trash, and various beer bottles, the most common items were numerous 16 oz. plastic bottles of Mt. Dew and Chick-fil-A garbage. What kind of person tosses their garbage out of their car window in their own neighborhood?

I got my answer. Hopers.

Scattered along the road were various pieces of mail that all went back to one man who lives several houses down from us. After I was done, I drove by the address to see who it was, and I was shocked to see it was the guy who thanked me and talked to me about hoping the county government would do its job.

Between the Mt. Dew, Chick-fil-A garbage and this guy’s personal trash, I don’t think our neighborhood could handle seven more months of hope. In the end, it took a doer to clean up this mess.

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond speaks out against Obama’s effort to put party rules ahead of counting the votes of 2.3 million Democratic votes in Florida and Michigan.

“The Obama campaign miscalculated on this issue and should have stood with Michigan and Florida given their strong African American populations. Had Obama won these states, I am sure many people would be supporting this change in the rules.”
[NAACP Chairman Julian Bond - 02-14-08]

Former Democratic presidential candidate and civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton joined Barack Obama’s effort to make sure the Democratic presidential primary votes of 2.3 million Democrats in both Florida and Michigan do not count.

“I firmly believe that changing the rules now, and seating delegates from Florida and Michigan at this point would not only violate the Democratic party’s rules of fairness, but also would be a grave injustice.”
[Rev. Al Sharpton - 02-14-08]

The right of every American’s vote to be counted when selecting who will lead our nation as President is one of the most precious constitutional rights we have. It’s a right many of our brave armed service members gave their lives to protect.

So why is Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama saying “No, You Can’t!” to more than 2.3 million Democratic voters in Florida and Michigan who voted in Presidential primaries? The answer is simple. Obama believes the constitutional rights of Democrats in Florida and Michigan should come second to the will of the Democratic National Committee in Washington.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama honored their agreements to not campaign in both states. In the absence of television ads and typical campaign noise that litters the political landscape, an unprecedented, historic record number of Democratic voters turned out to the polls and casted their votes for the person they believe will rise to the difficult challenges our country now faces.

Rather than stand up to his own national party’s attempt to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan voters, Obama first sided with the DNC and now suggests he wants a do-over. His personal preference is to completely scrap the votes that were cast and replace the primary process with caucuses. Obama’s choices are not sitting well with millions of Democrats who remember Republican attempts to stop counting the votes for President in Florida’s 2000 election. A U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore to stop the vote count led to one of the worst Presidencies in American history.

If Obama is not willing to stand up to his own party when his own party is wrong, how can we expect him to translate hope into political reality in Washington?

Here is what Americans are saying about the DNC’s attempt to disenfranchise 2.3 million voters in Florida and Michigan.

“The Obama campaign miscalculated on this issue and should have stood with Michigan and Florida given their strong African American populations. Had Obama won these states, I am sure many people would be supporting this change in the rules.”
[NAACP Chairman Julian Bond]

“You can’t undo an election with a caucus, and especially you can’t undo an election where 1.7 million Florida Democrats have gone to vote in a secret ballot and replace it with a caucus that maybe 50,000 people would show up. It’s a basic underpinning of our democracy, and it is a basic underpinning of a constitutional right to vote and to have that vote counted.”
[FL Senior Sen. Bill Nelson]

“I think that the people of Michigan and Florida spoke in a very convincing way, that they want their voices and their votes to be heard. The turnout in both places was record-breaking and I think that that should be respected.”
[Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton]

If Democrats want to indulge in a bare-knuckled credential fight from which only the other party can benefit, that is certainly their right — and well within the party’s kamikaze tradition.
[Time to fix state’s primary mess - Miami Hearld editorial - 02-15-08]

“They do not support a do-over caucus in Michigan, and the delegates and superdelegates in Michigan and Florida should not count.”
[Michiganders For Obama Coordinator Christina Montague]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says the votes of more than 2.3 million Democratic votes cast in both the Florida and Michigan primaries should not count in the party’s selection of the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Pelosi had one more stunner in the interview: She said the Florida and Michigan delegates should not be seated if those delegates would decide the nomination.

“Well, I don’t think that any states that operated outside the rules of the party can be dispositive of who the nominee is. That is to say they can’t make the difference because then we would have no rules,” she said.
[Pelosi: Don’t overrule the voters - San Francisco Chronicle - 02-15-08]

Last February, when Democrats wanted to know where Barack Obama stood on solutions, his response was a promise to avoid specifics, details and plans over the next two years:

“There are those who don’t believe in talking about hope. They say, ‘Well, we want specifics, we want details, and we want white papers, and we want plans.’ We’ve had a lot of plans, Democrats. What we’ve had is a shortage of hope. And over the next year, over the next two years, that will be my call to you.”

A year later, Obama is wooing crowds of first time voters with speeches loaded with strawmen he successfully knocks down to cheering crowds. It’s a technique mastered in the 2000 and 2004 elections by President George Bush. One of President Bush’s most popular strawman arguements with himself: “They say we can’t win the war on terror.” Nevermind that his real opponents never said that and that it was actually something he himself said.

“I don’t think you can win it,” Bush said in the interview on NBC’s Today show. “But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.”
[Bush: ‘I don’t think you can win’ war on terror - St. Petersberg Times - 08-31-04]  

Bush preferred fighting a fake no one over having to fight Al Gore and John Kerry on policy. Strawman arguements helped distract voters from the issues and a debate over real solutions. The results? We got a President whose policies plunged our nation into record deficit spending, the biggest government in American history and unprecedented foreign policy disasters. All because we never debated policy.

Obama is the kind of speaker that inspires and stirs passion in voters. His speaking style connects with people in much the same way President Bill Clinton does. The Democratic party is very fortunate to have him as a candidate for President. But when it’s time to talk real solutions, Obama has a problem rooted in inexperience.

Watch this clip from a November Democratic debate in which Obama is asked whether he supports giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens. In part of his non-answer, Obama says, “If we keep on getting distracted with this issue, then we are not solving it.” His attempt to answer is so bad that the CNN moderator demands an answer as the audience reacts with applause. With still no apparent answer, Blitzer asks all candidates where they stand. What was Hillary’s answer? One word: NO. When Obama takes yet a third attempt, the audience reacts with laughter, and he finally stumbles his way to an answer: YES.

After the past 7 years under President George Bush, America deserves a President who can deliver real solutions to the challenges our great nation faces. Despite Obama’s assertion that Democrats don’t want specifics, plans, or details, the fact is we demand them from our next President. With both Democratic candidates in a virutal tie with delegates (not counting Florida and Michigan), it’s time to deliver.