Obama made a lot of promises during his run for the Presidency.  He gave out the impression that he was different and was going to change the culture of Washington.  I wish him well.  He has a lot of challenges before him and if he wins, we all win.

On top of my wish list is ending the debacle called the War in Iraq.  I hope he follows through and actually get all of our troops out of the  country by next Christmas.  I know that the forces of the status quo are working on him and trying to make him become like all of the other go along politicians in Washington.  I hope that he is truly different and does what he said he would do.

The next wish that I have is to reform our broken health care system.  We have the most expensive health care system in the world and we cannot afford it any longer.  We need to get beyond the fear mongering and fix health care.  Every lobbyist will be fighting Obama on this one.  Let us hope that he holds on to Ted Kennedy's coat tails on this one and makes it happen.

What I hope that Obama does not do is to doom this country by spending so much money on trying to stimulate the economy that we will never be able to dig out of it.  We are spending trillions of dollars that do not exist.  What legacy will we be leaving to future generations?  Slow down and let the natural economic cycles work.  Make us feel good about being Americans and we will come out of our shell and begin spending money again.  That will do more for our economy that all of the deficit spending that you plan in doing.

Dean Barkley