Watson Supports Obama

Austin state senator and former Mayor Kirk Watson just declared his support for Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential race. That's no small endorsement considering the impact that liberal Austin will have on overall vote totals in the March 4 primary and the impact that Texas will probably have on Obama's neck-and-neck race with Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

[UPDATE: Perhaps not as influential in Austin, but possibly carrying weight elsewhere: Charles Soechting, the immediate past chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, also announced today that he is endorsing Obama.]

Watson's statement follows:

I am proud to support Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States.

Senator Obama offers this nation a new beginning. His leadership will tap our potential and give us hope.

He will help us to reject the poison politics of the past, and he will demand the solutions that will chart our future. Following his lead, we can shed the labels that divide us and unite for change.

Make no mistake, this is a movement rooted in policy as much as spirit. And in Senator Obama, we have found our leader.

Senator Obama will seize opportunities for a strong 21st Century America. He will create a foreign policy that strengthens and protects us. He will advocate for universal health care that works and makes sense. He will invest in the purest form of economic development – our teachers, schools and universities. And he will support clean power and technologies that will save our planet and our economy in this new century.

At this unique moment in our history, Senator Obama is focused on possibilities, not politics. He offers solutions that will unify our country and lead us into the future.

Perhaps most of all, he knows that hope matters.

Senator Obama offers hope – for peace, for security, for unity, for real solutions that address real needs, and for a nation that honors and fulfills the value of every one of us.

That hope is real, and it is important. It matters and has always mattered, but it has never mattered more than it does now.

So please join me, and millions more like me, in supporting Barack Obama on March 4.