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PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS OF LOS ANGELES

ENDORSES

**BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT**

Just over 60% of our voting membership chose to endorse Barack Obama for President

in the California Primary on Tuesday. Though some of our eligible voters wanted to

refrain from making an endorsement, no one wanted to endorse Hillary Clinton.

With more progressive candidates Congressman Dennis Kucinich and former Senator

John Edwards out of the running, we now face a choice between two candidates with similar voting records on Iraq war funding, trade, civil liberties, and Supreme Court Justice appointments.

Both Obama and Clinton voted to fund the Iraq occupation and renew the Patriot Act; both also voted to oppose Bush administration Supreme Court appointments, to gut CAFTA, to grant constitutional rights to Guantanamo detainees, and to oppose expansion of FISA spying. Both have pledged support for the Employee Free Choice Act, a strategic piece of legislation that would make it easier to organize the workplace and build a strong union movement. Both propose a time-table for partial withdrawal from Iraq and both need to be pushed to end the occupation entirely.

Obama, however, opposed the Iraq War Authorization from the start, delivering a powerful anti-war speech while in the public eye, serving in the Illinois legislature. "The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable," Obama told a Chicago rally in 2002.

Clinton , on the other hand, failed to even read the National Intelligence Estimate, a document prepared by US intelligence officials charged with examining the justification for a US invasion.

Had Clinton read the document, she would have noted the boxed and highlighted objections made by intelligence analysts who challenged the Bush administration's accusations that Iraq had WMD's. Not only did Clinton irresponsibly vote for the Iraq War Authorization, she also voted against the Levin Amendment, which would have required Bush to seek UN approval for an attack on Iraq.

More recently, Clinton, unlike Obama, voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, legislation declaring a wing of the Iranian military a terrorist organization. Surely, Clinton knew a vote for this amendment would afford Bush an excuse for expanding the Iraq war to Iran. Meanwhile, Clinton voted against a ban on cluster bombs, munitions that blind children attracted to the tiny bomblets that litter places like southern Lebanon. Obama voted to ban cluster bombs.

Some might argue we need a woman President to break through the glass ceiling -

to inspire young girls across America to scale new heights. Clearly, a woman President would be an important first, but we prefer a woman at the top who uses her experience and wisdom to say NO to imperialist wars, thus inspiring young girls worldwide to become peace makers and critical thinkers, not warriors and panderers to false patriotism.

Obama as President would catapult a man of African heritage, a man who spent his childhood among Muslims, to the center of the world stage, presenting a new face for America – and possibly a new US relationship to the rest of the world.

Our hope is that Obama's background in community organizing and constitutional scholarship will inspire him to honor the balance of powers, shun the concept of the unitary executive, disavow signing statements, restore habeas corpus and respectfully engage the legislature as an equal branch of government.

Going forward, however, it is our job as progressives to make our agenda, not a single candidate, the focus of our work – and to engage the youth inspired by Obama to join us in creating a more just society. Regardless of who is in office, we must persevere to cut funding for the US occupation of Iraq, stop an attack on Iran, indict the war criminals - and on the domestic reform front -- lobby for single-payer health care, support media diversification, protect the integrity of our vote, publicly finance elections, and empower the global union movement.

Vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday, February 5th.

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