Dear Senator Obama,

If you emerge this quarter as the top fundraiser, not just among Democrats, but among all the candidates on both sides, as you did last quarter, you need to come out in July swinging, and you won't be able to stop until March of 2008.

I've got to be honest with you Senator, I've not been terribly impressed with the campaign lately, and I am probably your biggest supporter.  That stupid Hillary Clinton (D) Punjab memo was a stroke of sheer idiocy.  When you have a million things to attack this woman on, your staffers (because I'm convinced they did this without your permission, or at least I hope they did) choose to go after this B.S. financial crap, and then they use this Punjab thing, and yes I know that's a province in India, but still, have you people heard of George Allen?

Why not attack Senator Clinton on her centrist, DLC, Republican-lite voting record?  How about: "Hillary Clinton (R-NY);" that would've been a better attack.  Or how about, Hillary Clinton: "She'll make sure that no hoodlums come over and burn the flag on your front porch?"  How about, Hillary Clinton: "If being President is about judgment, then she'd make a perfect President of the Home Owner's Association, but not so much the United States, after all she voted for Iraq?"  Any of those attacks would've been appropriate.

So here's what you need to do if you emerge as the money race frontrunner in Q2:  On the first day you release your numbers, release the following statement:

"Americans are putting their money where their HOPE is."

Being leader of the most powerful country in the world is not about having experience living in the White House, it's about JUDGEMENT.  For instance, Richard Nixon was one of the most experienced politicians in the history of presidential politics, he had been in Congress, he'd been in the Senate, he had two terms as a fairly powerful Vice President, and still, Mr. Nixon is universally considered to be the worst president in American history.  

Senator Clinton's judgment must be called into question.  When the NIE was available to all Senators concerned enough to read it in the fall of 2002, Senator Clinton made a judgment not to read it.  That was the WRONG judgment.  When the Senate voted on the Authorization for Use of Military Force, Senator Clinton voted to give President Bush that authority even though he had not presented a cogent argument for the need for the invasion of Iraq.  Those were other people's children we were sending into the jaws of death, through the gates of hell, and Senator Clinton voted to send them on flimsy evidence.  That was the WRONG judgment to make.

Senator Clinton, we know that the mainstream press loves to anoint you the next President of the United States, and Holy Roman Emperor and whatever other title they can think of, but we believe you lack the judgment to lead the free world.  We believe that when the chips are down, we need a leader who will not just speak in sound bites and appease people who hate you to your very core.  Dr. King said that there were two types of people, Thermometers and Thermostats.  Thermometers can read the temperature, Thermostats can CHANGE the temperature.  We believe Senator Clinton is an excellent Thermometer, but that she'd make a lousy Thermostat.   We believe that leaders who stand up and boldly go left, when all others are going right, and get people to follow them in that better direction, will move the country closer to that "distant horizon, and a better day."

THAT, SENATOR is what you need to say on the day that you release your statement of contributions for the second quarter.

And then you need to call for a bold new initiative.  

I have a suggestion.  As much as I don't like most of what he says, Joe Klein made a very good suggestion this past week in Time magazine.  You should call for universal service to the country at the age of suffrage.  Klein makes the point that this service doesn't necessarily have to be military service, but could include service as TSA Screeners, or AmeriCorps type volunteers, or service as a teacher in a troubled community after college.  The point is, service is missing in this country, and we are too easily able to turn our backs on the problems and the promise of so many people who are less fortunate than ourselves.  Should there be some reciprocation for said service?  Perhaps college tuition assistance would be feasible?  But I will leave incentives in your capable hands.

There are other bold proposals you could make.  The Governor of North Carolina is instituting a program where all his high school graduates will leave with, not just a diploma, but an Associate's degree, for example.  That would be a bold proposal and help move our education system in a new direction.

Senator Obama, I have contributed to your campaign, and followed you since the day you stood on that stage in Boston and said that "there is no such thing as a Black America or White America, there's the United States of America."  Senator, I have been waiting for you, please, PLEASE don't fail me now.