Inbox

Looking Back on Campaign ’08

Laura Ingraham’s contribution to TIME’s “Moments to Remember” from the 2008 campaign illustrates my own: the Republicans’ utter lack of vision [Nov. 10]. The overwhelming majority of their campaign ads never carried the remotest hint of what the Republicans would do if elected. Instead, like Ingraham, they produced laundry lists of reasons not to vote for the opposition. GOP mouthpieces complain that their candidates don’t get positive coverage in the mainstream media. Yet if you have no message, you probably won’t get much coverage. Dennis Sheehan, WAUPACA, WISC.

Stop Hidin’ Biden

Joe Biden is tops in my book, and I tire of seeing glib swipes at him because journalists think the public enjoys reading them [Nov. 10]. Biden has given tremendous service to this country and to the world. His life has been eventful–sometimes unfathomably painful–and he always gets up. He is a treasure. Noralee Bauthues Stewart, FAIR OAKS, CALIF.

Out, Politically Active and Proud

Titling your article on wealthy gay people and their political funding “A Gay Mafia” was a mistake [Nov. 10]. Mafia implies illegality. I am a gay Italian Democratic donor, and I was offended. Linda Sartori, JUPITER, FLA.

If trying to meet and influence politicians makes gay political donors a mafia, what do we call the endless parade of oil executives, Wall Street bankers and other rich, white, straight men and women who do the same? The struggle for civil rights may have progressed from the streets to the statehouse, but it is clear that TIME’s coverage hasn’t kept up. Eric Peterson, ORONO, MAINE

America and Change

On the night before his death, Martin Luther King Jr. mesmerized a Memphis, Tenn., congregation with an address in which he said, “I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land” [Nov. 17]. On election night we watched as Americans from Virginia, home of the capital of the Confederacy, to California voted for a President not on the basis of the color of his skin but on the content of his character. Now we know what King saw from the mountaintop. We have overcome. Alan B. Posner, ROYAL OAK, MICH.

Now that we’ve brought “change” by giving even more power to the party that forced bad loans and obstructed Fannie Mae reform while driving jobs overseas, it should not take long for Barack Obama to set the record straight on which party is actually pushing the “failed policies of the past.” The only question is whether he will be able to continue blaming Republicans for the disastrous policies of Democrats. Robert Moon, CINCINNATI, OHIO

I just turned 18. before this election, I did not follow politics at all and held some racist views. I volunteered briefly for Obama, knowing he offered the change our country needs. I now feel proud to have been part of this exciting milestone. Lauren K. Cichon, ST. JOSEPH, MICH.

During John McCain’s gracious concession speech, he had to pause to quiet his supporters as they booed at the mention of Obama’s name. If McCain had conducted his campaign with the grace and honor he showed in defeat instead of stirring up the worst instincts among his party’s right-wing base, the outcome of the election might have been different. Bernadette Pruitt, WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS

I now have two heroes: J.K. Rowling, who made my children readers, and Obama, who made them voters. Charles Hirschhorn PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIF.

To the supporters of California’s proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage: 1963 called; it wants its bigotry back. Julie Heinze, SAN CLEMENTE, CALIF.

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