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I’m on the road, on my birthday, stumping for President Obama in Florida, a state that if he wins on Election Day, could seal the deal. I witnessed the excitement of thousands of students yesterday across Southern Florida who, for many, will vote in a Presidential election for the first time in their lives. The students understood that the stakes in this election are enormous. The contrast between the two candidates is startling. No matter how much “Money” Mitt Romney tried to run away from his own position last night, and pretend he is some independent Republican, we know that his campaign has been bought by the highest bidders.

In essence, this is what we are fighting for. To preserve our democracy. To understand that Ben is certainly a person. And Jerry is a person too. But Ben & Jerry’s is not. But those corporations (not Ben & Jerry’s) that Money Mitt wants you and I to believe are people, are the ones who are lining his pockets with lumps of coal. And if Mitt becomes the next President, in return, he will certainly line their pockets with silver and gold. Of course he wants to privatize social security, healthcare, Medicare, education and prisons, that is why the Super PACs are spending in his favor 12 to 1, because they know he is like a Nascar driver with ads for sale. In one of his previous debates during the Republican primary he even had the audacity to say that they should get rid of Super PACs and the rich donors should just give him the money directly! I have many friends who can fund his entire campaign without blinking and they might even be so nice to let Mitt sleep in the basement of the White House, while they occupied the Oval Office. I hope that in my lifetime, we will get the money out of politics and restore the people’s control to our government. This is what is at stake. “Money” Mitt’s privatization plan of America’s services and his gross exploitation of the working class and the poor, all so he can make his friends richer. Sound familiar?

Somehow, I felt the President’s strategy last night in debate must have been a throwback to Ali’s “rope a dope” strategy against George Foreman in the “Rumble In The Jungle,” but the 12th round never came. In Ali’s case against George Foreman, we understood it, because he was fighting a bigger and better opponent, a guy that no one thought he could beat. He let George hit him over and over and over again and then knocked him out when George was out of gas. I am sure some people noticed the flip-flopping, the groping to every popular idea, and some of the outright lies that Mitt threw out there onstage. We were waiting for the President to throw that Ali right jab that knocked out Foreman. It looked like Mitt got himself so deep in a hole with changing his positions on the spot, that he never could recover and all the President had to do was hit him with the truth, but it never happened. I know the President personally. He’s smarter, quicker, wittier and more balanced than his performance last night.

But, here’s the thing. As my friend Gabrielle Union said this morning, “It’s OK to be disappointed, but do not be deterred.” I will get back out there, on my birthday, and continue to carry the President’s message of a more inclusive, compassionate democracy that works for the people who vote and not the ones who pay. I will continue to spread the President’s agenda, because I believe he will make it his legacy issue to get the money out of politics, so all Americans, not just a percentage of them, will have access to the American Dream. And I will campaign as hard as I possibly can until the last person votes on Election Day, because Barack Obama has had our backs, so now we must have his.

~Russell Simmons