Why I’m voting for Obama
This year we Democrats are in a rare and lucky position: we’ve got two good candidates to choose from. On Tuesday, I’m voting for Obama over Hillary. But in November, I’ll be happy to vote for either of them.
Right now, my preference is based on the following considerations:
Pressing the reset button internationally. After the last eight years, the U.S. needs to start over with the rest of the world. It’s hard to remember today, but there was a brief moment after 9/11 when the whole world was behind the U.S. What that moment called for was a unity government — and indeed, a diplomacy of global unity. Bush threw all that away in a blaze of arrogant partisanship and a go-it-alone rush to a misbegotten war. In the process he wrecked his own reputation and the nation’s.
Obama’s in a position to clear the decks and press “reset” with all of the strategic goofs and moral gaffes of the last eight years — and he’s in a better position to do so than Hillary. He was against the Iraq war, unequivocally, from day one. His briefer sojourn in the Beltway means there’s more of a chance he’ll be willing to try new approaches.
The Muslim factor. Obama’s time spent abroad, including his familiarity with Indonesia’s Muslim culture, has led to a scurrilous whisper campaign against him, suggesting that he’s Muslim himself. (Hey, change one letter of his name and you get Osama!) It’s a lie, but lies have been known to turn elections.
It seems certain to me that if Obama is the candidate, he’ll have to confront this lie directly at some point. More importantly, I think he can turn it around to his advantage. Because at this moment in history, we could really use a person in the White House who actually knows something about Muslim culture and society.
As we struggle to defeat Al Qaeda and its sympathizers, we need to carry the conflict back to the hearts and minds of the moderate Muslim world, which Bush — through policy errors, strategic blindness and moral failures — has ceded to our enemies. Obama represents a rare opportunity to reclaim this ground.
Electability. Hillary Clinton is a known factor to the American electorate. She has a lot of support. But it’s hard for me to see how she’s going to get too much more than she has today. And while this year’s GOP is comatose, her face remains one of the few stimuli that could conceivably cause the Republican right to hold its nose and vote for McCain.
Obama is simply a wild card. It could be that large numbers of white Americans will smile and nod and, in the privacy of the voting booth, decide not to support a black man. I think it’s worth testing that legacy against contemporary reality.
In the primaries so far, Obama’s been rallying young and disaffected voters back into the voting booth. That could make a huge difference in November: rather than limiting a Democratic campaign to a desperate hunt for one point over the 50-50 line that has marked Bush-era politics, Obama’s new throngs could tip the election in a stalemate-breaking way. It’s hard to see how Hillary could manage that.
Positive vibration. It’s hard to remember any political campaign as relentlessly upbeat as Obama’s, or as unwilling to sling mud. That’s part of his success story, and, evidently, part of his personality. It has worked beautifully to date, and it might work all the way through the election. But it worries me a bit.
When the GOP turns the slime machine on full blast, will Obama be able to deflect or defeat it? We just don’t know. Maybe his charisma will pull through; maybe he’ll show the charm and grace that Kerry just couldn’t muster and, with smiles and deft one-liners, sidestep the crap that will surely fly at him and defang the attack dogs.
But the hard-earned conventional political wisdom of the last decade is that when they come at you swinging slurs, your only choice is to hit back hard and fast. That doesn’t seem to be Obama’s way. And it’s a little troubling for any Democrat to contemplate a candidate who isn’t ready to rumble.
Still, I’ve always believed in voting one’s hopes over one’s fears!
Wordyard RSS feed
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I’m with you. I believe Obama may be just what the doctor ordered to get this country - and our reputation - back on track. While I will vote for Hillary if she ends up with the nomination, it will be more of a non-vote against the GOP than an actual vote for Hillary. Right now, I’m hoping Obama bucks the trend of choosing older while males as a running mate and either go with Bill Richardson or Arizona governor, Janet Napolitano.
If he doesn’t go with Richardson as a VP, perhaps he will choose him as Sec. of State and go with John Edwards for AG. Those would be good starts!
February 3rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Very well said - you’ve described very well a number of issues that are at the forefront for me in this election. I would also add to your list:
Careful consideration of Issues - I’m not sure this is the best “title”, but what I am trying to get at here is I really want a candidate who shows understanding, good judgement, and thoughfullness on issues (lord knows we could use it after GW). I don’t want someone who is going to jump to the “easiest” or sexiest solution of the time, or who is going to bow to politics over honesty and morality. I can give two examples where Barack is heads and tails above Hillary in this consideration. First, healthcare - the mantra of the time seems to be that if we can’t have single payer the ONLY other option is a mandate. As Obama has said, I believe that a mandate may create more problems than it solves (especially for people on the fringe, people who have illnesses, and older folks who won’t be able to afford the jacked up premiums due to their higher “risk”, and so would face economic penalties as well). Maybe there are other options out there? I think if there are other solutions, Obama is more likely to find them than Hillary, who seems to charge headlong into things with her own ideas and is probably less open to including other ideas. The second area where this shows is obviously foreign policy, where Obama’s positions on Iraq and Iran have been superior, and Hillary’s appear to be cynically political.
February 4th, 2008 at 1:00 am
Concerning “The Muslim factor”:
Is this really how far this has come? Is being associated with a certain religion enough to be declared unelectable, maybe even worse?
Is it desirable to expect Obama to clearly distance himself from a religious belief to be more … more what actually? Trustworthy? Good? Perceived as standing on the “right” side?
I am Muslim by birth - not any more or less religious than almost all of my Christian or Jewish friends.
I don’t care what people around me believe in or whether they believe in anything in particular. It is about being a “good”, ethical person that is important - and for all I know, there is a set of interestingly and surprisingly similiar convictions, not bound to any religion or nationality, that make any sane person consider other fellow human beings as good.
We should strive to make religion a highly private and intimate matter (once more), that has nothing, truly nothing, to do with a secular state.
We should have learned a little more from history: policy and religion are a defective, dangerous mix.
February 4th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I have the same concerns Mustafa K. Isik has and I’m a Christian! Being a Muslim should not make any difference in who runs for President of the United States. The same holds true for Jewish, Bhuddist, Hindi, Athiest, and yes, even Morman. What should matter is whether the candidate will be good for the country. While I can understand why some people might be a little apprehensive after what happened on 9/11, the pure and simple truth is that the VAST majority of Muslims around the world have nothing to do with terrorism. Too many people today equate the faith with terrorism. It is this kind of phobia that led to the Japanese interment camps during World War II.
Using this kind of logic, perhaps we should exclude Christians - after all Tim McVeigh was a Christian and until 9/11, he was responsible for the worst terrorist act in our nation’s history.
Until this country discovers an end to stereotyping individuals based on their race or religion, we will never truly be a free society.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I’m a Canadian so I’ll just comment on this part: “Pressing the reset button internationally”.
1. The world loves the Clintons. So I don’t know that resetting the button is what you want. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it sorta deal. Still, if Obama ends up being just as positive on the world scene as the Clintons (which is a near impossible feat), I’d welcome it. I just haven’t seen it yet.
2. I think Obama has run the most negative campaign I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. He blames Democrats for the war instead of Bush by saying “I was right from the start”. Right there, he’s someone that goes against his own group. He never voted against the war because he wasn’t even in the Senate and has said that had he been in the Senate, he would have likely voted the same way as everyone else. So it’s trite to claim that Obama was right from the start. As a foreigner to your country, this does nothing to calm my worries that stemmed from the Bush administration. Specifically, Bush’s tactic of claiming people are divisive and don’t support the troops if they criticize the war effort. Right now, Obama is doing the same thing and saying that Clinton is being divisive if anything about Obama is brought up when Obama is doing the criticizing first. The first thing you lose when these kinds of tactics are used is accountability.
The recent picture that’s in the news shows this dubious use of doing-one-thing-and-then-blaming-the-other-side-for-what-you’re-doing more than anything. Is Obama saying that Muslims are divisive? I don’t get it. Plus, that picture has been out since the time Obama announced his candidacy and has also been printed in some tabloids before Super Tuesday. So the rhetoric is lost on me.
His Rezko association of 17 years where Rezko would set up a front to take money that was supposed to go to low income African American communities is likewise disturbing. There’s no way Obama could not know. Even after Rezko was under investigation, he still did not cut off ties and bought a house with Rezko’s wife’s assistance. How do you know who he will and won’t turn against?
The negativity goes on and on. I simply cannot fathom how it could get any more negative than Obama’s campaign. It’s not so much the attacks, but the doublespeak such as when he boasted about voting against anti-abortion bills and the doing-one-thing-and-blaming-the-other tactics.
3. As a foreigner, I have universal healthcare. All industrialised nations have it except for the US. So I know that what would change your society for the better more than anything else is healthcare. The problem is that US citizens don’t know this. If you did, Hillary would win hands down. No other issue would even matter. Not even the war. The greatest Canadian who ever lived, according to Canadians, is the father of Medicare, Tommy Douglas, who beat out Terry Fox. That should show you how meaningful this is. I would give my life without hesitation if it came down to my life or universal healthcare. It’s that significant. Hillary has the better healthcare of the two candidates by FAR. But it’s still a failure compared to what we have. Nader’s healthcare plan is better, but he actually states that he wants a system that is like Canada’s. That’s not going to go down well with US citizens that have national pride (something I consider good BTW).
4. As a Canadian, I have a big concern about friendly fire from American soldiers. It would calm our concerns if your military has a knowledgeable and strong leader. At the last debate, Obama showed that he has no knowledge of the military structure of your armed forces. His foreign policy is quite naive too.
These are just a few points to consider. Originally, I did not care who you elect or don’t elect to the White House. But Obama is now the third person after Cheney & Giuliani, who scares the bejezus out of me a million times more than Bush because of the destabilizing effects they will have around the world. Also note that the above examples are simply a few items on the tip of huge iceberg for Obama.
For me, the racist and sexist undertones of this election by some in the general population and in the media are repulsive. It makes me proud to be a Canadian.