Obama Ipsum

If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.

I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us. It seems to me that each day, thousands of Americans are going about their lives - dropping the kids off at school, driving to work, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets, trying to kick a cigarette habit - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. And God is still speaking. A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. We are the party of Roosevelt.

But there's a story I want to share that takes place before Moses passed the mantle of leadership on to Joshua. So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America.

Each of us in our own lives needs to do what we can to help the poor. That's the change we need right now. I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.

It's been several months now since I announced I was running for president. It wasn't until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. It is where our union grows stronger. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur.

Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.