Senator Obama's Father's Day Speech - "any fool can have a child...it takes a man to raise a child"

This is a pretty amazing speech even for Obama. In it he takes men to task for abandoning their children/families...especially black men. It's especially poignant when he describes growing up without his own father and the sacrifices his mother had to make. He also discusses how we must help and support single mothers who are giving everything to raise their children...and that is why he is running for president.

My daughter and I feel a special affinity to Barack Obama because of his childhood. I was fortunate to meet and marry a wonderful man, but I was a single mom for the first 3 years of my daughter's life and her biological father was almost non-existent. My daughter had led me to believe that she didn't remember her father until very recently. She unexpectedly ended up recounting a memory of her father, then cried and ran out of the room and wouldn't discuss it anymore. It was a wake-up call to me that no child whose father abandons him/her is unaffected no matter how young.

Even before the election, Obama's candidacy is changing the dialogue in this country. How could a McCain presidency even compare?