Mr. Obama’s neighborhood
"Everybody has a story about President Obama, and this is mine.
"I have always been an independent voter. I never thought it was anybody’s business if I was a Republican or a Democrat. Then I heard Barack Obama’s speech in 2004 at the convention, and I turned to my husband and said, ‘Someday that man will be President of the United States, and I will support him.’ Little did I know, three years later he would be here in Iowa campaigning to get the nomination.
"The only way you can participate in a caucus here in Iowa is to declare a party, so I declared that I was a Democrat. I helped organize the caucus, actually, and it was one of the most wonderful, happy moments of my life to see all of the people who came out, not only for him but for all of the candidates. After he won, I went to many events as he continued to run, but I was never heavily involved until this year. Now I’m supporting the campaign with money as well as time. I’m a leader of a neighborhood group called Mr. Obama’s Neighborhood, and I do anything and everything I can to ensure the President is re-elected.
"I think he’s done a fine job. He had to get his hands around the economy and see what we could do to keep it from getting worse. He was able to stop the bleeding, and then he slowly started getting things going in the right direction. And now Mitt Romney says he’s going to go back to the same failed policies we’ve tried in the past—the trickle-down economics that take care of the rich and leave the middle class with absolutely nothing.
"My daughter lost her job, and President Obama’s extension of unemployment has been a great help to her. I have a neighbor whose son was diagnosed with MS in his early twenties, and Obamacare has allowed him to stay on his parents’ health insurance and get the health care he needs.
"We need to think long and hard about whether we want to go back to the ways of the previous administration. President Obama saved the US auto industry. Romney says he would have let them fail. Where would we be today if he had? We had to save the auto industry. We had to put money back into the banks and get them strong again. And we have to give to President Obama so the middle class can get back to where it needs to be. It’s like the President said—whether we’re black, white, Republican, Democrats, we’re all Americans. We all have to be in this together in order to make a difference."
—Cheryl, a mom and a proud supporter of President Obama in Iowa
2.4 million Americans like Cheryl have stepped up to own a piece of this campaign—join them.
