I am a Democrat, and until now, I have been very active in Democrat politics in Virginia.

I campaigned for and contributed generously to Mark Warner’s campaign for governor and Jim Webb’s campaign for the U.S. Senate and will vote for Mark Warner again this November. However, I am not voting for Barack Obama. Instead, I am actively campaigning for Sen. John McCain.

I am supporting Sen. McCain for two main reasons. First, my dad retired as a prison guard and my mom retired as a schoolteacher. I was not born into wealth. My parents worked hard to provide for us. Likewise, I have worked extremely hard in building my own company, and I now employ more than 150 hard-working people.

I sacrificed an enormous amount of time away from my family and took significant financial risk. And now, Barack Obama, a U.S. senator with a very limited resume, who has never run a business of any kind, has decided that we should redistribute wealth away from people like me who have worked hard and sacrificed to get where we are today. His economic policies stand opposite to the principles on which this country was founded.

Obama speaks every day about change and makes grandiose promises for bigger government programs he wants to create. However, the only way he can keep his promises is by increasing taxes at the expense of the American worker. Barack Obama has never met a tax increase he didn’t like. If you look at his record as an elected official, he has already voted in support of tax increases nearly 100 times.

Our economy cannot afford Barack Obama as president. With Obama’s certain tax hike, young entrepreneurs of America will do the math and decide the risk is greater than the reward. We can all say goodbye to future small-business ventures.

Secondly, and most important, John McCain is an independent thinker and leader who has always and will always put our country ahead of himself and his political party. We know this because as a prisoner of war, John McCain refused early release from prison in North Vietnam to stay with his fellow soldiers. There is no better example of an American putting his country first.

We also know that John McCain reaches across the aisle to Democrats and independents to craft legislation that is best for all Americans, even when it wasn’t politically expedient or the popular thing to do within his own political party.

Maybe Sen. Obama will exhibit this kind of personal and political courage in the future, but up to this point, as Sen. Hillary Clinton said, “All Barack Obama has done is give a good speech.”