Ahem...VOTE!

Just got my absentee ballot in the mail. There's something special about being a "Democrat Abroad" and keeping tabs on home in this way. Anywhere we go in the world, we are still Americans - somedays, for better or worse - but in this case, I can sit down in front of Table Mountain on a beautiful spring day here in Rosebank and express my democratic rights to choose my leaders. A right which so many people, black and white have fought and died for over centuries, both at home in America and right here in South Africa.

All that said, I do have a political statement to make here. I want you all to know that I am supporting Deval Patrick for Governor and Worcester Mayor Tim Murray for Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth in the upcoming election and I encourage you to do the same if you are voting in Massachusetts. Ours is a state that has been bereft of leadership over the last 16 years with the GOP in the Corner Office, and it is time we had an executive who had the wherewithal to manage the Commonwealth's enormous potential. Deval Patrick and Tim Murray have those capabilities. They will bring new ideas and new directions to an office which has been used simply to stonewall the progressive measures which the Legislature has tried to pass over the last two decades. With a Democratic Governor and a Democratic Legislature, we can finally achieve the promise of the Massachusetts Miracle and once again assert our rightful place as the leading state in the Union. So I encourage you to support Deval and Tim in the Democratic Primary on 19 September and then it's on to victory in November!