Dear President Obama,
I hope this note finds you well. I have been a big supporter of yours since you came into the national spotlight in 2004. Your speech at the Democratic National Convention moved a nation. You presented your ideology and showed your humanity in that speech. You touched upon your vision for America "E Pluribus Unum....Out Of Many One." After 2004, I continued to follow your career, paying particular attention to you policy positions on big issues impacting these great United States and the world. In 2008, I traveled from New York State to New Hampshire to work on your campaign. I was featured in an article in BusinessWeek highlighting younger Americans and their support for presidential candidates. I did this despite a long time love and care for Hillary Clinton who I've met on several occasions and even had an intellectual policy conversation with at a FDR Four Freedoms Ceremony in Hyde Park, New York. I supported you in 2008 and in 2012 especially given the challenging Congress and troubling Republican Party whose primary job was to make you a one-term president.
During your presidency, I've supported aspects of your progressive policy agenda and disagreed with your approach and tacit utilized at times to achieve your agenda. After all, what is democracy about? Fundamental is the ability to agree and disagree with your political party and a person you've voted for. Despite it all, I have refrained from any major political criticism of you because you've had enough with both major political parties at times being unhappy with the way you've handled national and global issues. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I see this playing out in recent debates over what to do with Russia and Ukraine. The populous does not want troops on the ground yet they want your administration to do more than economic sanctions and sending a special envoy to assist Ukraine in protecting themselves. Beyond air strikes or ground troops against Russia, which will create an even larger global conflict, which by the way I thought we agreed we did not want, I am not sure of what they would like you to do? I understand the challenging times we are in and the bipolar populace that makes decision-making difficult. Notwithstanding this all, I cannot help but to speak out against you and your administration's decision to visit Texas and not visit the border.
Wake up, Mr. President! I can no longer stand on the sidelines. I am very concerned about the advice you are receiving! The optics of visiting Texas for fundraising purposes and not visiting the border, a location Democrats, Republicans, and Independents have all coined a humanitarian crisis. Shame on you, wake up smell the coffee, and bring back the humane person that I believed in in 2004 and 2008. I understand that members of your team have visited the border on numerous occasions and that you're examining what policy tools that you can use in order to help the situation at the border but your visits during hurricane sandy to locations in New York and New Jersey showed you cared for people and their situations. This leadership and compassion is needed now more than ever for the situation at the border! You need to lead here! How else can you appeal to Congress or the American people if you're not there on site seeing the conditions, which women and children are experiencing? This should appeal to your emotional intelligence instead of only being concerned about raising money and your theatrical performance with civil leaders about this crisis. The strategy should be to visit the border with these leaders then convene a conversation about how to deal with this situation on the local, state, and national levels. The conversation is critical but if I know anything about agency and action it is more compelling when you see conditions and situations first hand. When you deal with people directly and hear their stories. This puts a human face behind the need to make major policy action on comprehensive immigration reform.
Mr. President, I understand you're handling this issue as well as major global issues but I think what is needed of you is leadership and not worrying about the political pundits. The same pundits in Congress that are not doing much - especially the Republican Party who refuses to do anything. You can be the change we need. You said you were the change we needed. So be that change!
Sincerely,
Concerned Supporter