Today, I made a small contribution to President Obama’s reelection campaign and entered the drawing to have dinner with the President. I urge you to do the same at https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/o2012-dinner-with-barack-march

There was a request to share with the President my top reasons for supporting his reelection. I find dozens of urgent and heart-felt reasons for supporting Progressive Democrats in general, and President Obama in particular, so the exercise of choosing my highest priority reasons in just a few words was revealing to me.

A few months ago, job creation would have been near the top of my list, but today, it didn’t even make the top 5.

Over the last few months, some core American values that I have taken for granted have come under attack by pseudo-religious regressives. I could never have even imagined that a serious candidate for the Presidency of the United States – Rick Santorum – would be proposing to abolish Public Education – a core American value since our founding.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people …
They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
– Thomas Jefferson

Where the press is free and every man
is able to read, all is safe.
– Thomas Jefferson

Modern cynics and skeptics… see no harm in paying those
to whom they entrust the minds of their children
a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom
they entrust the care of their plumbing.
– John F. Kennedy

I could also never have imagined that that same candidate would also be proposing to outlaw condoms and birth control pills – which have been legal in the United States since 1954 when I was 9 years old.

And last year’s attack on the core of our political system unleashed by the tragic “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited big business money to be spent on political attack ads continues to be an escalating perversion of our political process.

I hope we shall crush in its birth
the aristocracy of our monied corporations
which dare already to challenge our government
to a trial by strength,
and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
– Thomas Jefferson (from a letter to George Logan, Nov. 12th, 1816)

So, after much thought about prioritizing, this is a list of my top 5 reasons for supporting the reelection of President Obama.

1. Keeping government out of the bedroom and personal medical decisions

2. Universal Health Care

3. Public Education

4. Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes

5. Getting Big Business out of Politics

Please consider your own list of the top 5 reasons for working diligently to reelect President Obama, and share your list in the comments below.