My son is forever optimistic. He's six years old, which I'm sure helps. His world is pretty simple -- he gets to play, learn, dream and be loved, unconditionally, by Mom and Dad. He wants to be an inventor when we grows up. And a meteorologist. Oh, and a substitute teacher for HIS kindergarten teacher, in case she ever needs a day off in, say, twenty years. Anything and everything is possible for him. He's full of hope.

Hope is a good thing. It's not overrated or frivolous -- or useless. We NEED hope. We need it in our daily lives and into the future. It makes us better people, more engaged, more productive, more ALIVE. Yep, I guess you need hope to live.

When Barack Obama says he has "the audacity of hope," I get it. I just hope that everyone else gets it, too.

Here in Pittsburgh, I've talked to a great many moms who support Barack Obama. They are enthusiastic, even downright effusive, about what he will bring to our country. And then, invariably, they lean over and whisper "even my husband supports Obama! he can't STAND Hillary." or "my dad told me he's voting for Obama and he's 89 years old! he thinks McCain's too old!"

I guess the secret in these parts, maybe even all over Pennsylvania, is that while a lot of women are Democrats, their husbands and fathers are Republicans. But this election cycle is turning that stat on its weary little head. With no real prodding from their wives, these fellas are reading, watching and listening and like what they see in Obama. At the same time, it appears they really don't like what they see in Clinton and McCain. I get that it's a visceral thing for them, something in their gut that says "I need to vote differently this time."

It's too early to say whether this will translate to more votes for Obama in the upcoming April 22nd primary. Goodness knows a lot of my fellow Pennsylvanians re-registered as Democrats over the last month, so it may. But I'm convinced that come November, if the Presidential race is Obama vs. McCain, those fathers and sons, husbands and brothers, will look at the Pennsylvania ballot in front of them and place a check mark next to Obama's name as a wry smile crosses their faces.

A group of twenty megabucks Dem donors to Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign sent a letter to Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi yesterday. The full text of the letter is below. In effect, they told Pelosi that her stance on superdelegates -- that they should follow the will of the voters -- is wrong. They said superdelegates should do whatever they want, while reminding Pelosi that they had all been BIG donors to Democratic congressional candidates. Does this sound like strong-arming to you? Actually, it sounds more like a full-on threat to me, a Tony Soprano-type, whack-'em-across-the-knees job if they don't listen.

Who do these twenty fat cats think they are? Well, they're friends of Hillary for sure, some of them very good friends by their own admission (Susie Tompkins Buell). And you can bet that Hillary knew this letter was going out. The only thing scarier than Hillary Clinton being president is her being a clueless president, and no one in their right mind would call her clueless. Calculating, maybe, but never clueless.

I like that Barack Obama wants to give our country back to the people, people just like you and me. Make our voices heard. Empower us to speak up, say what we want and then collectively find a way to make that happen. Obama wants EVERYONE'S voice to be heard. Sounds like Hillary and her closes circle of friends want THEIR voices heard to the exclusion of everyone else's.

Here's the full text of the letter:

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the US House of Representatives
Office of the Speaker
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Madame Speaker,

As Democrats, we have been heartened by the overwhelming response that our fellow Democrats have shown for our party's candidates during this primary season. Each caucus and each primary has seen a record turnout of voters. But this dynamic primary season is not at an end. Several states and millions of Democratic voters have not yet had a chance to cast their votes.

We respect those voters and believe that they, like the voters in the states that have already participated, have a right to be heard. None of us should make declarative statements that diminish the importance of their voices and their votes. We are writing to say we believe your remarks on ABC News This Week on March 16th did just that.

During your appearance, you suggested super-delegates have an obligation to support the candidate who leads in the pledged delegate count as of June 3rd , whether that lead be by 500 delegates or 2. This is an untenable position that runs counter to the party's intent in establishing super-delegates in 1984 as well as your own comments recorded in The Hill ten days earlier:

"I believe super-delegates have to use their own judgment and there will be many equities that they have to weigh when they make the decision. Their own belief and who they think will be the best president, who they think can win, how their own region voted, and their own responsibility.'"

Super-delegates, like all delegates, have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party's strongest nominee. Both campaigns agree that at the end of the primary contests neither will have enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. In that situation, super-delegates must look to not one criterion but to the full panoply of factors that will help them assess who will be the party's strongest nominee in the general election.

We have been strong supporters of the DCCC. We therefore urge you to clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August. We appreciate your activities in support of the Democratic Party and your leadership role in the Party and hope you will be responsive to some of your major enthusiastic supporters.

Sincerely,

Marc Aronchick
Clarence Avant
Susie Tompkins Buell
Sim Farar
Robert L. Johnson
Chris Korge
Marc and Cathy Lasry
Hassan Nemazee
Alan and Susan Patricof
JB Pritzker
Amy Rao
Lynn de Rothschild
Haim Saban
Bernard Schwartz
Stanley S. Shuman
Jay Snyder
Maureen White and Steven Rattner

I recently received an email from a friend bemoaning the fact the many "feminists" are "drifting in ever-greater numbers away from Clinton" toward Barack. The people quoted in the email don't seem to understand why this is happening and offer shallow reasons (i.e., they are moving toward the "rock star" and the "momentum") as if any woman who doesn't support Hillary's candidacy is not thinking clearly about the consequences.

Personally, I find it interesting that so many of the feminists who support Hillary seem to have blinders on when it comes to considering what her election would actually mean to our country (other than making history by electing the first woman to the White House.). As I've stated in many discussions I've had with people on this topic: I doubt there is anyone who would like to see a woman elected president of the United States more than I do. However I'm not in favor of electing a woman JUST BECAUSE she is a woman.

There are many reasons I don't support Hillary and right at the top of the list is that I truly feel if she is the Democratic nominee it will light a fire under the Republicans and bring them out of the woodwork en-mass to make sure she is not elected (and God forbid we get McCain in the White House!!). And if she happened to actually get elected, we would have another four years of political business as usual EXCEPT there would be MORE polarization than already exists in this country. We will get another four years of attacks much more vicious than those that made Bill Clinton impotent as a president in the last years of his presidency. Instead of "being ready on Day One," she would spend her presidency fending off those who really hate her and what she stands for -- NOT because she is a woman but because she is a Clinton thus diminishing her effectiveness as a president!

Also, there's no denying that if she were elected president we would we get Bill in the package who will once again be rich fodder for the Right Wing attack machine detracting even more from the effectiveness of a Hillary presidency. Also, and probably more important, Bill won't be bound, as the president is, to "play by the rules." We may find that he becomes a loose cannon, using his powerful influence as a past president and now husband of the current president, to wheel and deal with foreign heads of state while not being bound by Congressional oversight (or presidential oversight). As a country, do we want to have to endure a possible marital power struggle in the White House?

I would like to see this country get off of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton seesaw and head in a new direction that gives voice to the people, strengthens our democracy and unifies our country. I support Obama because he represents a break from the divisive "business as usual" politics we've all been subjected to over the past decade. I truly believe Obama has the ability to steer this country in the direction of unity. Also, he is attracting young voters like no one in recent history has been able to do and we need to engage the youth if we are to save and strengthen our democracy. Obama, himself, is young, energetic, extremely intelligent and doesn't come with years of Washington baggage (that some might mistakenly equate with "experience").

Barack is also, I believe, a true feminist -- he is comfortable around powerful women and I feel he will do more to advance the cause of the women's movement in this country than will Hillary's polarizing energy. He is lighting a fire in the hearts of those of us who have been disillusioned with our political leaders and inspiring us to get involved like no other since JFK. I was a high school student when JFK was running against Nixon and I remember the enthusiasm that we, as young people, felt when he was elected. For the first time since those early years when I initially became aware of the political process, I once again feel that type of political enthusiasm (and yes, HOPE) that our country can once again be put on a track of truth, integrity and transparency (what a concept!).

My first remembrance of hearing Barack Obama was when he delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. After his speech my husband and I looked at each other and exclaimed, "Why isn't HE running? He's the candidate we could wholeheartedly support!" He inspired us like no one has since JFK. My husband and I then read his book, "The Audacity of Hope" and again felt a surge of what I can only explain as an inner knowing that this man could open the door to a "bright promise" of what is possible for our country and for the world.

When it became clear that he was going to run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008 I was thrilled to support him. I went to see him when he appeared in San Francisco at a "Women for Obama" event and felt my spirits rise. Like no other candidate in recent memory, he makes me want to be involved in what I feel is a political and social movement that will bring with it a sense of renewal and help to create positive change on many levels -- in our country and in our world.

I've listened to those who have said, "Yeah, but... he's too young, too inexperienced..." I say to them, "Maybe that's JUST what we need! Someone who isn't tied to the "old ways" of doing things. Someone with vision who can bring a new perspective to a world in which we face deep challenges. Someone who can actually bring our country together after years of polarization. Someone who can help heal the racial wounds our country continues to carry. Someone of integrity and transparency who we can trust to tell the truth, even when it may not be what we want to hear. Someone who is intelligent, a deep thinker, and who knows he doesn't know all the answers and is willing to be upfront about that and ask for advice. Someone who is invested in the future and in making the world a safer, saner place for the upcoming generations. Someone who respects and wants to engage the American people in ways we haven't been engaged since JFK.

People who know me and my work with women's empowerment are surprised that I am supporting Barack instead of Hillary. After all, this is our first REAL chance to have a woman serving in the top position of our country. "Why would you pass up the opportunity to get behind that possibility?" There is no one, I believe, who wants to see the United States elect a woman president more than I do! However, I don't want to see just "any" woman get elected just because she happens to have made it to the national arena.

There are many reasons why I am not supporting Hillary. Some I can address specifically and others are more of a gut feeling that are somewhat difficult to explain but just as powerful an influence on my decision. Hillary is definitely intelligent and persuasive and articulate and a good debater. However, she won't admit when she's made a mistake, she is part of the "old guard" politicians, she has refused to say she will not accept money from lobbyists, she is married to a powerful former president and it's really unclear what role he will have in the decision-making should she be elected. In my gut, I don't feel I can trust what she is saying is the truth. I don't feel she operates completely in integrity. I feel she is more interested in HER accomplishments and in being acknowledged for them than in engaging Americans in rising up together to meet the challenges we all face as a nation and as a planet. She has shown time and again throughout this campaign that she still operates under the old political paradigm that I feel will not lead this country in a new direction but keep us mired down in "politics as usual." Lastly, I feel it's time for us as a nation to break the chain of sea-saw politics Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton.

I have watched Barack Obama throughout this campaign and have seen how comfortable he is around powerful women. I personally feel he may do more to uplift the status of women politically and otherwise in this country than Hillary would be able to do. At the Women for Obama event I attended in San Francisco, I witnessed his respect for women and experienced first-hand his ability to inspire the several thousand women who were in attendance. Recently as my husband and I listened to Caroline Kennedy and Ted Kennedy endorse him, and to his acceptance of those endorsements, we were both actually moved to tears.

It is my sincere belief that Barack Obama is who we need to elect to move this country into a new age of inspired leadership!

Sen. Barack Obama has released his tax returns for the years 2000-2006 and they can be viewed online. It's within his pledge for more transparency in government. Sen. Hillary Clinton has yet to release her tax returns, stating that she will do so a few days before the Pennsylvania primary and, at the same time, claiming that the personal disclosure forms she has filed as a Senator should suffice.

Presidential candidates have been releasing their tax returns for years now -- it's part of the vetting process. Why should things be any different for Sen. Clinton? If anything, the litmus test for Sen. Clinton should be even higher, seeing as how there are numerous questions surrounding her tax returns, among them the nature and amount of offshore tax shelter income and her and her husband's actual income, which has apparently grown exponentially in the years since he left the Oval Office.

Mark Halperin of TIME magazine sums it up well.

It's also essential that Sen. Clinton release a list of donors to her husband's Presidential Library. With numbers such as a $130 million contribution from the Saudis swirling around, it's important for the American public to get a real accounting. It will then be up to the American public to decide whether such large cash donations to Mr. Clinton's library most likely came with strings attached.

I love that Barack Obama can get things done. I'm a can-do kinda gal myself. He seems to know how to cross the aisle, extend a hand, work for the win-win. In a little over two years in the Senate, Obama has sponsored or co-sponsored more pieces of legislation that have been enacted into law than Sen. Clinton has -- and she's been in the Senate three times longer! I call that getting the job done.

Our governor here in Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell, came out a while back supporting Hillary Clinton for President. This didn't surprise me, as the Governor strikes me as a glad-handing, I'll-slap-your-back-if-you-slap-mine, old-time politico kind of guy. He kind of reminds me of Chicago's late Mayor Richard Daley, whom I'm barely old enough to remember. Daley was part of one of America's most illustrious political machines, and ran the Windy City with an iron fist for years.

I wasn't much more surprised when our mayor here in Pittsburgh, Luke Ravenstahl, and his close cohort, Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato, both came out in support of Clinton a couple of weeks ago. They remind me a lot of Rendell, except they're a younger, better-dressed version of the Governor. And then there's Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who's nuts about Clinton even though his constituency is solidly pro-Obama.

But I was absolutely floored when U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a STAUNCH opponent of the Iraq war, came out in support of Clinton several days ago. Note to Murtha: Clinton voted FOR the war; her opponent, Barack Obama, has opposed it since day one. I guess I assumed, probably incorrectly, that Murtha was proud to be his own man around Bush's War and most everything else and didn't need to be a part of any political circle or ol' boy network to validate himself. I truly got the impression he was outside the political machine.

Makes me wonder if our "leaders" here in Pennsylvania are nothing more than sheep, following that which will insure the status quo -- their elected offices, their power and their prestige. A continual greasing of their wheels, as it were. The problem is that while they grease THEIR wheels, the wheels are about to fall off OUR cars thanks to all the potholes on the streets. Guys, it's about Main Street, not Wall Street or wherever else the Clintons (can you say "tax shelters"?) and their friends are making their money these days.

Thank goodness Barack Obama knows it's all about US. And I'm happy to say that nearly two million online donors to Obama's campaign obviously feel the same way.

I like John Edwards. He strikes me as an honest, hard-working, passionate guy. The Democratic Presidential nomination didn't look like it would be his in 2008 so he listened to the American people and gracefully stepped aside. His constituents -- some equally solid and hard-working folk -- are probably waiting for his next moment, a sign as to which way he'll go. I get that. And that's why it's so surprising to me that his next moment has yet to come.

What is John Edwards waiting for? The Democratic race needs to be decided NOW, before the divisions in the party sink its hopes in the November election. I'm sure that's why Bill Richardson stepped up and endorsed Barack Obama NOW. We need to get this thing decided and move forward.

John Edwards has the ear of many -- many, in fact, who were looking for CHANGE. He is all about helping regular folks, not the fat cats in D.C. He is, in fact, someone who represented the change that Barack Obama represents, though it's Obama's good fortune to be the better messenger.

John Edwards' next moment needs to be NOW. He needs to step forward and endorse Barack Obama as the next President of the United States of America. His words to that end would go a long way in Pennsylvania and across America. Now is the time, Mr. Edwards. We're waiting -- and listening.

Over 4,000 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq. They were the sons and daughters of mothers and fathers. As a mother, I am devastated, absolutely devastated at the thought. I can't imagine losing my baby in Iraq. The thought of losing my baby, my boy, anywhere is almost more than I can bear. My son is the light of my life. He is a good, solid and honorable boy -- though he has his moments. He's only six, after all. But he is my friend, my helpmate, my muse. He inspires me to be a better person and to always do the right thing. And he certainly doesn't deserve to die in an ill-conceived war in Iraq.

My heart goes out to all the mothers (and fathers) who have lost their children in Iraq. Hey, my heart goes out to the Iraqi moms and dads as well -- they are losing their children at a faster clip than we're losing ours, and not much is being accomplished in the process. EVERYONE over there is far less safe than when this whole mess started. When will we say "enough!" Truly, I thought we'd all close ranks and bring the kids home when the American death toll passed 2,000. It was a huge, inconceivable number to me at the time and yet, we got to 3,000 and now 4,000 dead. This is simply too much to bear.

Yep, it's hard on me but nowhere near as hard as it must be on the mothers and fathers whose shining, bright light has been snuffed out.