An open letter to President Obama

Congratulations. You fought a hard fight and you won reelection. I hope you understand that it does not mean that the majority of the people are on your side. They are not.

62,085,000 voted for you, 58,777,000 voted for Romney but almost 90,000,000 did not vote. I hope you don’t feel like you have a mandate. What you have is a responsibility to lead this country and that means even the ones that did not vote for you.

A long time ago I was a part of a church that needed more room. The congregation of about 800 voted repeatedly trying to create a solution where there did not seem to be one. Half the church wanted to sell the land and building we were in and go build on a larger lot with room to grow. The other half wanted to start a sister church and continue meeting in the location that was land locked and had no room for growth. Every time the elders took a vote it would swing one way or the other by 1 or 2 votes. The elders wisely refused to take advantage of the split but rather wanted a consensus.

The solution came out of necessity. We rented some space for about 200 folks and some room to grow and planned a service time and date to start. On that day about 400 showed up. Shocked, the leadership opened up the rooms we could and the church service was held. Most were dumbfounded. What do we do now?

The end result was the original church continued in the old location with the folks that wanted to stay and the new church went on to build on a bigger lot and grow to over 10,000 in attendance today. No one saw that coming. We got a solution that pleased everyone and met the need.

Our country is divided and has been for years. For as long as I can remember and I can remember a bit longer than you have been alive.

I recently started listening to the radio addresses that Ronald Reagan did between the time he was Governor of California and President. He did over 1000 2-3 minute essays that he personally researched, wrote  and delivered on the radio. I found that he is talking about many of the same things that we heard about today. It reads like the news just from this morning.

Why is that?

This problem of not voting plagues us too and is a big deal. Curtis Gans, director of the non-partisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate says 90 million Americans who could vote won’t. “The long-term trend tends to be awful,” Gans says. “There’s a lack of trust in our leaders, a lack of positive feelings about political institutions, a lack of quality education for large segments of the public, a lack of civic education, the fragmenting effects of waves of communications technology, the cynicism of the coverage of politics — I could go on with a long litany.”

So by my count you won by a margin of about 29% of the electorate. Hardly a mandate but I am praying you lead us well. We will work with you for the next 4 years and I will continue to pray for you but I will not always agree with you or your path. I think we would be better served by someone that knows our history better and leads us as the nation we are. We are the nation that defeated the Nazis and the Japanese when they wanted to rule the world. We sacrificed greatly to accomplish that goal with our allies and we did not go in to take over but to preserve freedom.

We have not been perfect but I can’t imagine living anywhere else and I pray you leave this nation better than you found her. I pray you find a way to unite us rather than continue to fracture us along class line or party lines. We need you to lead. I pray you will.

Thanks for listening,

• ← It’s almost over
• Wife runs over non-voting husband – Katie Glueck – POLITICO.com →