Barrack Obama Election

I was recently listening to a normally conservative person making his comments about the Democrat's primary elections. While he did take the time to specifically say he did not hate Hillary, I would have accused him of this. I know plenty of people that hate Hillary Clinton. I swim in a sea of conservative people in my work and personal life, and all I know is that the 90s, while prosperous and carefree from an economic and energy standpoint, were clogged with conservative vile directed at the Clintons. While almost any kind of Republican could have been elected in 2000 without inciting similar feelings of the opposite extreme, instead we got George W. Bush. I wonder if there are more Bush-haters out there than there were Clinton haters. In my opinion, the Bush-haters are much more impotent than the Clinton haters ever were. As evidence, I submit the impeachment of Bill Clinton over lying about a blow job.

I think it's time for there to be a woman President, and I'll be glad to vote for one when the right one comes along. Now is not that time. Hillary is not a good candidate, if for no other reason than that she will keep the cycle of hatred of the Executive alive and well. The Bush Presidency (43rd) was the only thing that could enshrine Bill Clinton's Presidency. While Bill's popularity numbers were pretty high near the end of his term, one thing you can't measure is the extent of the hatred of him. People only get one vote, and so approval polls don't have weighted multipliers. If someone thinks he's ok, he gets a plus. Conversely, if someone rants about him all day long and dreams about his untimely demise with the fervor of a high school boy dreaming about the head cheerleader, he gets a minus. These two votes are not equivalent. People quietly approved of Bill Clinton or violently opposed him. With time, his image mellowed, and the upsets of 9/11, a crummy economy, and rising gas prices helped make the 90s seem like some distant utopia of times gone by. I think Hillary was hoping to ride these feelings right into the White House. Rather than everyone bowing down and handing the reins over to Hillary, she found that she had a serious contender in Barrack Obama. Only by trying to trash Obama and defend Hillary could Bill Clinton manage to make his prestige drop off. He seems a little unbalanced (mentally) now when you listen to him. For the last 3 or 4 years, you'd see him on talk shows or giving speeches and he seemed like this brilliant guy that had a handle on things. Now he seems old and crotchety.

I believe that either McCain or Obama will break the cycle of hatred of the Executive. It's hard not to like the calm maverick style that McCain exudes. There's something about the guy that allows you to disagree with him violently and still respect him. When he speaks you don't feel like he's an idiot, condescending, or lying to you.

But I like Obama better. I think he provides a sense of hope and possibility that this country needs. I can't help but compare him to Kennedy. Kennedy was witty, compassionate, decisive, and visionary. Even if Obama didn't have a solid plan, a sense of optimism and opportunity would make people behave hopefully and positively. I think that simply having a leader you respect pushes the country in the right direction.

One of the things that I have always been dismayed by is the influence of big donors on the President. The winner is always the one with more money. There is a cause and effect feedback present, because donors always try to secure influence with the candidate they think will win. I've always felt that this was a corruption of our democracy because you get leaders that spend their terms paying back all the people that put them in office and ignoring what needs to be done for the good of the country. Obama gets 90% of his donations from people giving less than $100 each. Much of this is done through the internet by individuals, not from big donors. I like to think this makes Obama beholden to the people, not energy companies, polluters, trial lawyers, unions, or investment bankers.

Don't you want to see a leader that can tell some narrow faction of society that they are not going to have their entitlement preserved at the expense of the greater good of society? Think about it, this goes both ways in it's most pure form. Whether your pet indignation is oil companies making record profits or unions dragging the vitality of a manufacturing base down to a fragment of it's former ability, you want someone as a President that can say no to those that drain or disrupt society. At the same time, you want a President with enough compassion that he can help those that need it, whether it's a dying industry or a needy individual.

I think both Obama and McCain fulfill this description. For the first time in a long time, (assuming Obama gets the Democratic nomination) I feel like whichever candidate wins, the American people win too.

4/16/08: Right after posting this, the first headline I saw in the news was a story about Hillary's credibility rating plummeting in the polls. It cited the story about landing under sniper fire as the cause, but that's just the story of the day. I don't know if I agree with that cause and effect.