I'm writing this diary to explain to you what initially drew me to Barack Obama's campaign. It was a year ago, when I heard about Project Readon, a site that captions internet videos for free. I'm deaf, and the internet has left me behind when it comes to accessibility in internet media. I can't watch CNN videos, MSNBC videos, download media from network shows and movies onto my iPod or laptop that has captioning, and I didn't have that access until I found Project Readon.

And there was a video on that site. It was an outline of Barack Obama's plan to empower Americans with disabilities. Project Readon said that Barack Obama's campaign was the first website to sign up to caption their videos. Hillary Clinton's campaign was the second to join in along with Senator Tom Harkin's Senate campaign. The Republicans said no to Project Readon (with the exception of Ron Paul), which shows the lack of care that the Republican party has shown to Americans with disabilities.

Barack Obama provides that link to closed-captioned videos at Project Readon, which you can find here with the green button that says "Closed Captioning."

You click on that link, and you see a whole line of videos with closed captioning in them. That really meant a lot to me as a deaf American, who relies on captioning to get information about the outside world.

I also read Barack Obama's plan for Americans with disabilities. They also provided a link to sign up in a Disability Discussion group to talk about policies that can help disabled Americans. His efforts to expand the dialogue to deaf and hard-of-hearing people like me tells me what kind of a leader he'd be in this area.

John McCain's videos do not have closed captioning at all. That is the stark difference between John McCain and Senator Obama and Senator Clinton.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton led on this issue of accessibility. John McCain does not do that at all. He voted against the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which which provided more accessibility for the deaf with stronger FCC regulations on closed captions and Relay services. John McCain also does not support net neutrality.

This means that if net neutrality is no longer in place, telecommunication companies can place a video bandwidth limit, block our video transmissions, and this is a big issue in the Deaf community because many of us use webcams, Macbooks, and other technology items to communicate in ASL with our deaf peers. I speak orally, and I do not know ASL, but I have many friends in the Deaf community that would be impacted if net neutrality was overturned.

Many of them are impressed with Barack Obama's accessibility to the deaf and hard-of-hearing, and we have our own group on BarackObama.com. There's a small contingent of the Deaf community that are fervent Paul supporters. My best friend is one of those Paul supporters although she's moved onto Obama now.

John McCain will not lead in terms of accessibility on the Internet. That's a part of the reason why I proudly support Barack Obama as a deaf American.