Fundraisin' for a Change

This past Sunday I dropped by a fundraiser event for Barack Obama in Koreatown, invited by my friend who works for Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas. Not really having kick-started my analysis of candidates out there yet, my only real knowledge of Obama, silly as it may sound, was that he is a) Democratic and therefore b) NOT BUSH. Hey, these are the important things. Although we had difficulty parking, and we basically had to cram ourselves into a very hot conference room, I was instantly uplifted by the antiwar leaflet I picked up in the front and by the eclectic group of enthusiastic people that were there.

Both Ridley-Thomas and Mike Davis spoke, but the most interesting speaker by far was San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who declared, in a statement more eloquent than I can probably recreate, that now is the time to show the international community who we really are, after eight years of embarrassment and an image that does not representative us as a country. That's what I'm talking about.

I have more homework to do as far as who actually gets my vote, but ultimately whether it's Obama or Clinton or Edwards, (or Colbert), it's encouraging just to know that Harris's sentiment is shared by so many people. And soon after that moment the sound of drums broke out and a group of Korean drummers, including my friend, burst into the room, playing and crying out, "Welcome to Koreatown!" and voicing their support.

I left with a bumper sticker that said 'Got Hope?', and I did.