Dear Mr. Obama

I greatly admire you. You rose from humble beginnings to graduate from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where you became the first African-American president of the law review.

I admire you for not stooping to the level of those who have slurred you as a terrorist or suggested you are a traitor willing to lose a war in order to lose an election. I admire you for not resorting to your own mud-slinging.

I admire you for your commitment to equal rights for all including the gay people.

I admire you because you refuse to play the politics of fear. You speak to our hopes – our desire to end a misbegotten war in Iraq.

I admire your commitment and vision to build new bridges across the globe.

I admire you for your conviction in speech. I believe your declaration and I trust in you to bring change towards a better world.

I greatly admire you, sir. I pray for you to win this election for this is the moment to defeat terror and dry-up the well of extremism that supports it.

You are the man who will lead us from hate to hope.

God bless you, good sir.