Independents' Midterm Campaign

Dear President Obama,

First of all thank you for volunteering to do something I would never want to do.

I do need to tell you how much I have stuck my neck out for you as an independent leader in an independent state heavily influenced by a conservative establishment.

I served a year in Iraq as a First Lieutenant in the Army in 2004. I was incensed by the ineptitude of Secretary Rumsfeld and the zeal in former President Bush's heart that led him to justify and even defend deplorable human rights abuses of detainees in U.S. custody. I can go into detail some other time about how the treatment of these prisoners is the De facto policy of what the U.S. will tolerate without objection in the treatment of U.S. service members

In the fall of 2008 I purchased a large piece of canvas upon which I spray painted the words "HONOR VETERANS, VOTE OBAMA". I helped a Democratic voter win our election for mayor. Her Republican opponent attends my church and has repudiated me and my family directly and indirectly. I have worked on campaigns for Democratic candidates and non-partisan issues such as independent redistricting. In all this I have never changed my voter registration from anything but unaffiliated, yet I have organized for some local Democrat candidates more ardently even than your own party. You owe me at least one.

I will temper my criticism; I know how lonely leadership can be. Realize however that your best advisers will always give it to you straight.

Leaders make mistakes. Just like in a marriage, conciliation can be powerful even essential. What our country needs is not a liberal agenda, not a conservative agenda or a centrist or even a libertarian agenda. What our country needs is leadership. Washington is a place dominated by oscillating factions of 'bullies on the playground' as it were. Your faction, newly in control of the 'playground' has acted very exclusively and you have gone along with the crowd. Sir, you are in a historic position to make it right or make it worse.

My recommendations:
1. Tell your party to stop it. Enough with the partisanship already. A stiff arm approach tears at the fabric of our Constitution--a system by which disagreements and policy can be settled civilly with consensus. We are like Velcro--we cannot pull too hard in opposing directions without coming apart.
2. Be a leader. Make a bold statement. Change your party registration to none. Right now you are effectively the President and leader of a third of this nation; the DNC third. You have got to assert yourself as the servant leader of ALL. We will continue to languish as a people divided if you cannot find the courage to do this, and it will be lonely for a time.

Come back. Be a uniter. We miss you. God bless you in your efforts to be the servant-leader of ALL Americans; the kind of leader we need--the kind of leader we had before when consensus was in vogue.

Sincerely,

Randy N. Miller
Syracuse, Utah
randy@uliv.org