In order to not receive nasty messages from Ken anymore (and to ensure that I always have more entries than Jesse), I decided to think my thoughts here rather than other places. Well, I already thought them there. But other people feel more free to criticize them there. And here, I have the power to prevent non-conformist thought. So there it is then.
My tale is one of “WTF happened to me?”, or to be more accurate - “How can I blame this on Smoove_B?”. I would refer to him as Mike, but apparently his stupid worm chronicles didn’t rate well enough to get him invited here. Chump.
Let’s start with where I am now. Much to my surprise, I find myself positively giddy at the prospect of being able to vote for Sen. Barack Obama, even if my only opportunity is going to be next Tuesday when the awful State of New Jersey holds it’s primary (which isn’t really a primary, since they aren’t choosing delegates until June or something retarded like that). To understand the gravity of this, you have to understand that just 8 short years ago, I was little more than a hack Sean Hannity clone. Conservative to the core, and one of those guys, that only cared about winning.
I wasn’t even planning on paying attention or participating in this election. I’ve gotten so completely disgusted with The System(tm) (don’t even get me started) and with our homogeneous two-party system, that it just didn’t seem worth it. The Republican candidates all seemed awful. Hillary seemed inevitable. What was a disenchanted soul to do?
And then Sen. Obama won the Iowa Caucuses. Suddenly perhaps Hillary wasn’t the inevitable candidate. The only reason that I even started looking at Sen. Obama was because he seemed like the only candidate with a reasonable chance of standing in the way of Empress Hillary. What I found was a guy that disagrees with me on virtually every issue you can find (aside from a set of liberal social positions that I have acquired over the past 8 years).
And yet, I find myself almost willing to donate money to his campaign. I find myself ready to go to the polls next week, declare myself a Democrat, and press the button indicating that I’m for Obama. I’ve tried to articulate why. My parents find themselves supporting Mike Huckabee (who I’ve decided is my arch-enemy). They think I’ve lost my mind. Hillaryites can’t seem to figure out what is so appealing about a candidate that doesn’t have 2000-page policy papers on how the federal govt can and will solve every problem under the sun. Even Canadians are confused over the appeal of this man.
The only way I can describe it is to say that this man makes me believe. Something I doubted any candidate from any party would be able to accomplish. I find Hillary to be a cold, conniving and calculated shrew that is consumed with hunger for power. Hillaryites don’t really deny the charge, so much as they try to get me to accept that all candidates are like that. Are they? I find Mitt Romney to be a fraudulent repackaging of Bill Clinton in Republican clothing without the hillbilly charm. I’m told that all candidates just tell me what I want to hear. When it gets down to it, they’re all frauds. Are they?
Somehow, Barack Obama has made me believe that he is the real deal. We don’t share the same philosophy on how to solve most problems - but he doesn’t project the feeling that solving problems is just a stepping stone to his personal acquisition of power. I realize that in some sense it’s unfair for me to compare Obama to Hillary, since there is a 0% chance that I would ever vote for her.
Somehow, Barack Obama has made me believe that he gets it.
This country needs a visionary. We’ve been too long without one. I hope that Barack Obama is it, because I already know that Clinton, McCain and Romney aren’t.
Last 5 posts by Brian
- Her? - July 9th, 2008
- Back in the Saddle (again) - June 30th, 2008
- Good Riddance Michael Gagnon - June 30th, 2008
- The Sky is (Not?) Falling - June 13th, 2008
- The Counter-Offensive Has Begun - June 12th, 2008
January 30th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Excellent post Brian. I too am an unlikely Obama supporter.
But I believe it will be short-lived. Call me a reluctant McCain supporter when Hillary rolls the tables next Tuesday.
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January 30th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Actually, Mike is a member — he’s just never posted. Worms are a full-time job, you know.
I’ll echo your thoughts. Obama makes me believe. With my head I know he’s voted with Hillary Clinton more than 90% of the time, that his experience isn’t particularly inspiring, and that his stated policies aren’t really any substantively better than anyone else’s. Maybe it’s no more than this: he’s likable and the prospect of voting for him doesn’t make me bitter.
In a field where everyone is politician-level dishonest and nobody has a set of policies that would satisfy me, there’s something to be said for the guy who can be inspiring.
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January 30th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I am dreading next Tuesday. The thing that gives me hope though is that there are four people in my house that have never voted in a NJ primary election in their lives. All four of them are going to the polls, declaring themselves as Democrats - and voting for Obama. I can’t be alone in that experience.
I don’t even know how to process what I’m going through. Every other election I’ve participated in has been simply about voting for the “-R” (in my younger days), or holding my nose and voting for who I thought was only slightly less of a shit heel than the other guy (voting for Bush over John Kerry in 2004).
Never really considering the third party angle, I’ve never had the opportunity to vote for a candidate that I WANTED to vote for. I only hope that the stupid Democratic party doesn’t let me down.
Of course, I’m sure it will since they really don’t care what I think.
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January 30th, 2008 at 11:20 am
He’s got my attention though I can’t say I’m backing him. . . yet.
Also, I feel like he’s done a better job of telling people what they need to hear (and not want to hear) at times than any other candidate. SAve McCain, who has kind of made a history of that int erms of what he actually did with his time on the hill (and I was thinking this would cost him a nomination, but things are breaking beneficially I think). I feel like Hillary wants me to believe that the Federal government, Her Way(tm) will make everything ok and I’m either foolish or idiotic to think otherwise (most likely the latter). I don’t get that from Obama. I feel like I’m being almost niave in stating this, but I don’t feel niave so maybe that’s a testament to Obamarama.
And I kin of want a Democraft to win. The republicans had a big opportunity post-Bill and blew it. Time for the other guy to get a turn, I think (unless it’s Hillary, in which case the Dems can go spit).
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January 30th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Brian, I think you are definately not alone and that there are others who are making that leap as well (whether it;s the first time for “the other party” or the first vote period depends).
Like you, I’ve not had much in the way of people I wanted to vote for in elections. I’ve got a string of what were really mostly protest votes for third party candidates in my history (including my first vote during Clinton/Bush, where I was probably as misguided as anything else but needed to make my own choice and couldn’t find a vote for Bush Sr in the dry desert of my heart). I very much think he’s gotten people talking about him who wouldn’t normally be (alternately, they’d only be doing ti to cuss him. Party line and all that). How many really are remains to be seen. Hope springs eternal.
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January 30th, 2008 at 11:26 am
By the way, in favor of Obama, I have to cite yet again the speech he gave at an African-American church in which he rebuked the community for hatred of gays and for hostility to immigrants. I can’t imagine Clinton telling an audience anything other than as close as possible to what it wanted to hear.
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January 30th, 2008 at 11:47 am
As is my role on this blog, I have shallowest reason amongst the people here as to why I like Obama.
http://media.orkut.com/articles/0619.html
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January 30th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
When I read things like this: http://www.pickensdemocrats.org/info/TheAgitator_070319.htm
or see things like this:
http://www.thetalentshow.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/obama_teaching.jpg
I wonder where that Barak Obama has gone? The one running for President is a bland quote machine talking about the audacity of hope (and what the heck does that even mean?) the old Obama was a neighborhood activist who worked hard to organize, educate and help the disenfranchised in our society. Look at that picture, can you see Obama going on Oprah and talking about “relationships built on self interest” and pointing the finger at Corporations for their lobbying of candidates? I sure can’t.
I see a strong lefty bent to Obama’s past, and it makes me want to like him, but then I listen to his run to the middle speeches now, and it almost makes me sadder than Hillary’s naked ambition.
For me, Obama pulled a reverse Edwards. Edwards went from the picture of entitlement to the only candidate talking about the poor and the real issues facing the disenfranchised in the US. Obama did the opposite, and I sort of resent him for it.
I really have no idea who I am voting for on Tuesday.
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January 30th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Well, it certainly would be no surprise that you and I are looking for different things in a candidate.
I did see that today Obama came up with what might be an effective counter to Empress Hillary’s “ready from Day One” rhetoric. The speech outlined a series of mistakes he thinks that she made (agreeing to the Iraq war, agreeing with Bush on Iran, etc.). It concludes with - “it’s not enough to be ready from Day One - you have to be right from Day One”. Touche.
I haven’t seen a single Obama policy that I would call “running to the middle”. Is “hope” something that is seen as “running to the middle” in your fruity leftist circles?
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January 30th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Even in my fruity leftist circles, hope is not a policy. I am reminded of an old Latin saying, “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” Candidate Obama is definitely running away from the issues he supported in the link and the photo I posted above. To me, it seems just as calculated and typical politician as anything Hillary does.
You know, maybe it’s that word hope that bugs me so much. I just see it as another facet of the Horatio Alger myth that America is supposedly built on. It’s also patently untrue. For the vast majority of Americans, life is not happy. They are poor, they are hungry, they have no safety net. Hope is a false message. A direct change in policy and a ton of money are what’s needed, not the audacity of hope. What’s audacious about it is how thin it really is.
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January 30th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Ezra is enough of a realist to know that Scary Black Man might win an Oakland council election but will never win the presidency. What I don’t get is your conflict when the only viable alternative, from your political viewpoint, is The Machine.
Edwards could get away with his rhetoric solely because he is white. Not that it helped him. If Obama ran using Edwards’s rhetoric, his candidacy, and his electability, really would resemble Jesse Jackson’s.
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January 30th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Lucky for you that Obama is about a direct change in policy, and likely will have no problem attempting to raid my wallet. The idea that he is appreciably different than Hillary when it comes to policy is ridiculous.
As a nation, we seem to have come to the understanding that the President really should be a Super Legislator. We care about their policy positions. We demand 1000-page white papers on how they would solve any particular problem if given unlimited purse strings. But Presidents aren’t Super Legislators, and they shouldn’t be.
Legislator’s craft legislation on behalf of their constituents, that hopefully address the problems that they face. That isn’t the role of the Executive Branch, and I get mystified when that appears to be the criteria that some people use to select a candidate.
The role of the Executive is to get us all pointed in the right direction. Not the right ideological direction. That will get sorted out in Congress. The role of the Executive is to think big picture.
The most important angle that I think Obama is taking here - and the one that resonates most with me - is that WE are the ones that need to do the heavy lifting. WE have to solve the problems. Not the President. Not Congress. The People.
That’s why I am so completely unimpressed by Hillary’s command of policy details. I don’t care what her solution is. I’m cynical enough to know up front that it won’t work. Government isn’t our savior. Government should facilitate our ability to solve problems - not replace it.
Hillary Clinton is prepared to lead Democrats. Barack Obama is prepared to lead Americans. Maybe that’s not what you are interested in. I am.
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January 30th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Hope is not false, nor lame, nor inherently just some sales pitch (though it can be so abused). Hope is also not the Horatio Alger story (I will wonder, briefly, if perhaps Gaiman did Alger far better than Alger ever did with the Story of Prez Ricard in Sandman. I digress). Strummer understood this, even as his peers frequently did not. The “Alger myth” is as much a piece of propaganda as the Alger rags-to-riches template.
And Brian, you say about Obama much better than I ever could what I want to say about him. So I’ll just say: Obamarama! Wooooooooooo! (maybe!) *makes double fisted rock & roll signs, wags tongue*
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January 30th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
“For the vast majority of Americans, life is not happy. They are poor, they are hungry, they have no safety net. Hope is a false message.”
The vast majority of Americans? I think that overstates it by quite a bit. We have one of the highest standards of living in the world in this country. I don’t want to belittle the plight of thousands of Americans who don’t have enough to eat, don’t have adequate shelter or clothing, don’t have adequate access to medical care, etc., but in the numbers game it is something far less than the majority that are shouldering the cruelest burdens.
There are a couple of reasons why I really like Obama and will be voting for him in the primaries. 1. He won’t screw me on a Supreme Court nominee. This is always my number 1 concern in Presidential politics. 2. He’s a natural statesman. Our foreign policy desperately needs that right now. We will need a face to signal to the world that the madness of the Bush foreign policy is at an end and I think Obama is the best man for the job. 3. He’s the first major minority candidate who doesn’t stump on the issue of victimization. That’s huge. This is a guy who actually has a shot of getting middle america to listen to him on race issues, because he doesn’t start every conversation with “You guys screwed us big time and it’s time to pay up.” And as Ken pointed out, he’s willing to challenge his base to look in the mirror. 4. He’s a breath of fresh air. Of all the candidates, he’s been part of the machine the least. One dares to imagine that a new idea might actually have a chance of flourishing in his administration. I think most American’s are desperately fatigued by the state of our politics and it’s nice having a guy around who isn’t as shackled to the status quo as some of the other candidates.
I don’t know if Obama can beat Hillary. It will be tough. The party machine knows exactly what it will be getting in Hillary, which could end up with her running away with the nomination, but right now it looks like he has a chance. I’m excited about that, particularly since I think Obama will be the strongest candidate that the Democrats can field against the Republicans.
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January 30th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I’m just amazed that it’s gone on as long as it has. I remember reading about Obama’s win in the Illinois senate primary and being impressed by the guy, but I never figured he would run for president, and I never figured he would have a shot. The people I like don’t win - I’ve internalized that so much that I still can’t believe that one might.
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January 30th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Give your anointed party front-runner some credit. She will do everything in her power to ensure that the people you like continue to not win.
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January 30th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
OBAMARGARITAS FOR EVERYONE
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January 31st, 2008 at 7:50 am
I think the most frustrating thing is that I don’t actually know *any* firm Clinton supporters who will attend the Minnesota caucuses. Yet she’s still ahead in the MN polls! I can’t even argue with people and try to convince them to vote Obama. I’m tempted to make a lawn sign or something.
My wife and mother had been in the Clinton camp, but they’ve gone undecided or Obama-leaning. I think they’ll both flip to Obama.
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January 31st, 2008 at 7:58 am
Obamagaritas to go with our Obamaghanoush?
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February 2nd, 2008 at 11:19 am
I’m with Chris. It’s incredibly frustrating to see Clinton ahead in the polls because my personal experiences haven’t given much evidence of such. (What has to be done better?) While I do live in a conservative area of Pennsylvania, the vast majority of the people that I know with whom I also talk politics were either in the McCain/Edwards/Obama camp. There is one friend of mine who is a firm Hillary supporter. That’s it. The people that like Obama are passionate about his candidacy. Passionate. It’s so strange typing that word knowing some of the people I’m talking about and their views/attitudes on politics. Granted, the majority of the people are under 40, and that’s probably not one of Clinton’s core demographics. Nonetheless, it’s both bewildering and frustrating to try to understand where the lead is coming from.
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February 13th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I’m a 21 year long card carrying Republican who is supporting Obama, the first time I’ve supported a Democrat in my life. He won me over with his proposed ethics reforms for the White House and the system of lobbying in Washington D.C. Most of my conservative friends think I’m nuts, but if we can get real reform in Washington over how the money flows, that will be the best case scenario for our nation. People could get upset and “vote all the bums out” of Congress and the Senate, and the new legislators would still be staring down the throat of 4 million dollars per EACH Representative and Senator of lobbying money. Nothing will change until we get real ethics reforms in this area. Go Obama!
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February 15th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I was a Republican all my life up until Bush ran for governor of Texas. I voted for Ann Richards, she lost and the rest, as they say is history. I was not quite old enough to vote for John F. Kennedy but I remember Kennedy and have not felt inspired by any policital figure since that time. I am hungry for inspiration and for anyone who is not politics as usual. I seriously do not believe that this country could survive a John McCain presidency. Nor do I believe that Hillary Clinton (despite the fact that I voted for her husband twice) has the correct temperment to be president. She represents business as usual and I believe that Bush has gotten things so messed up that business as usual won’t get it. I feel so strongly about it that I am doing two things that I HAVE NEVER DONE IN MY LIFE, 1) giving my money to support Obama and 2) investing my time in his nomination here in Texas. It is the least I can do for my children and grandchildren.
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February 15th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I’m a Democrat but I suspect that I’m an outlier for the party in that I’m far to the left or the right of the mainstream position on, well everything. The Democratic Party isn’t friendly to libertarians. That said, if Obama gets the nomination, he will be the first Democratic nominee in my voting career of twenty-two years who hasn’t utterly disgusted me.
I admire that Obama seems to appreciate a few of the things that Ronald Reagan got right, and is willing to say so, and I don’t mean just the “morning in America” cosmetics, nor does Obama. But I hope even more, assuming he wins, that he’ll study a few of the things Jimmy Carter got wrong.
My main worry about Obama is idealistic Carteresque incompetence in foreign affairs, whereas I have no worries at all about McCain on that score. But since McCain’s aspiration seems to be to reincarnate Theodore Roosevelt for the 21st century, I’m likely to hit D in November.
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