Dad,

Barack Obama has, and is gaining, momentum. There is a physical reality here that goes deeper than health care or immigration. Those things are important and we should evaluate them and make sound decisions about how to proceed in the best interest of our nation and our world. But the inportance of those issues is not what is giving Barack Obama his head of steam in this election.

As I watch Obama speak and watch his campaign unfold, I am reminded of the days when you and I built a little wooden car to race in the Pinewood Derby hosted by our local Boy Scouts. I remember standing in our musty basement, the smell of sawdust and melting lead lingering in the stale air.

I was watching and listening. You told me that we were adding weight by drilling holes into the bottom of the car and pouring in the melted lead (those were the good old days). I remember questioning you, though, and telling you that I didn’t think that the car was going to go faster with more weight. I even broke out my Galileo story, telling you about the time that Galileo dropped two balls from a tower, different weights, and they both hit the ground at the same time. I remember what you told me. You said, “That’s right. But the bigger ball made a larger hole. That is called inertia.”

Later I learned that mass is not the only variable in calculating momentum. Velocity and acceleration also have to be accounted for. Barack Obama doesn’t have the mass. He isn’t the Clinton family, he can’t compete with the John McCain war hero element. But he has a lot of velocity and he is picking up acceleration faster than the other candidates.

That is giving him more momentum and, though they will all reach the end at the same time, Obama will have the inertia.

No matter what happens, Barack Obama will go far.

Bryan.