Beginning with this post, Asian Americans for Obama will regularly feature testimonials from the grassroots on what inspires people to support Senator Obama for President.  We invite everyone to submit their own thoughts on why they believe Senator Obama should and will be the next President of the United States.  E-mail your testimonial to asianamericansforobama@gmail.com.

For our first post in the series, I would like to offer my own perspective as founder of this website:

I had the privilege of attending the University of Chicago Law
School
while Sen. Obama was still teaching there (technically, he still is;
the school lists him as "on leave").  Unfortunately, as a first year
student, I did not have the chance to take any of his classes, but I
knew several students who did.  What I learned about Sen. Obama
inspired me to volunteer to help collect petition signatures for his
2004 Senate primary campaign.

From the very beginning of his Senate campaign, Professor Obama
inspired me.  He was as genuine and down-to-earth in person then as he
comes across now.  My friends told me how dedicated and hardworking he
was as a teacher, in an area of scholarship where teaching often takes
a back seat to publishing articles, casebooks, and learned treatises.
Even in the midst of a brutal primary that no one thought he would win,
Professor Obama never missed his weekly office hours and appointments
to go over students’ papers, answer questions, and discuss class
topics.  Great professors are loved by their colleagues and great
teachers are loved by their students; Professor Obama was loved by both.

For those who worry that Sen. Obama is a product of media hype,
remember that throughout both his primary and general election
campaigns, people thought of him as an admirable, but quixotic
candidate.  He was an accomplished, principled State Senator, but
regarded as too idealistic, too straightforward to go far in politics.
He had defied the powerful Chicago Democratic machine by allying
himself with figures such as the Reverend James Meeks, a South Chicago
minister, activist, and progressive state representative who served in
the state legislature as an Independent - virtual heresy under King
Richard II.  He was certainly an adept advocate, authoring solidly
progressive legislation such as creating a state Earned Income Tax
Credit, a huge expansion of CHIP, requiring the collection of racial
statistics in police stops, and requiring the videotaping of all murder
interrogations, and passing these by often astonishing margins in a
closely divided Illinois State Senate.  In the case of the
interrogation videotaping bill, he led a process that transformed
opposition by police groups and state prosecutors into endorsements,
and passed the bill unanimously.  He once even convinced the NRA to
switch from opposing a bill to endorsing it.

Without the parade of astonishing coincidences that led to his eventual
victory in the primary and the general election, no one thought
principled, passionate Professor Obama could beat a popular
multi-millionaire with the support of most of the big Democratic
interest groups or the state comptroller and son of the one of the most
powerful ward bosses in Chicago.  No one thought he could beat a
moderate, self-made millionaire Republican who quit investment banking
to teach inner city kids.  But Professor Obama didn’t just take
advantage of his good fortune and rest on his laurels; he continued the
conversation and inspired the state of Illinois with his vision.  He
filled rallies in Cairo, Illinois with enthusiastic supporters, where
just a few decades before, a young Dick Durbin was warned not to answer
knocks on his motel door for his personal safety because of anti-civil
rights sentiment.

I believe that any of the likely Democratic candidates would make great
Presidents.  But I also believe that Sen. Obama has the potential to do
more than just be a great President.  I believe that he can inspire and
reunite this country behind a progressive agenda like no candidate
since perhaps Bobby Kennedy.

- Ramey Ko
(The above was previously posted as a comment on Burnt Orange Report.
Some information above is from my admittedly faulty memory, so please
feel free to correct any factual errors in the comments.)