I VOTED. I voted today, and, unlike other years, it mattered. I realize that I thought about the choice of candidates more seriously when I had the opportunity of participating in the political process, and I had to make a decision. I follow politics closely, but I didn’t decide on my vote until it was clear that my vote would count. There are a lot of voters like me out there.
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I voted too. And, I can’t be sure, but I think Phil and I didn’t cancel each other out this time. What bothers me about the candidates is that it seems impossible. except in the case of McCain, to know what they might really do. Once he/she is elected, what true positions will emerge. And, even more to the point, even with McCain, how much of the candidate’s position will actually be enforcible, against the political forces afoot in our government and AROUND our government. I remember poor Jimmy Carter trying to do good and being ridiculed, saboutaged, and turfed out. He may have been pure of heart, but that didn’t mean he knew how to play the game. (How like dear Brutus in Julius Caesar.) Even now I think he’s done harm, trying to play roving ambassador for the U.S. when he has absolutely no role in policy-making now.
How coy! What were your respective decisions and what became the decisive element for each of you?
Candidates need to project a vision of their kind of leadership. Being too specific comes back to haunt those who succeed. Remember “Read my lips!”
Beware! This writer is an outspoken Obama supporter who attended a local caucus in Toledo on the same day Iowa voted. The purpose was to select the local Obama delegates to run in the March 4 Ohio primary!
(Hillary had the biggest turnout here, but not by much even then. However most of the establishment Democrats, black and white, were supporting her. The Obama supporters included some very promising younger elected Democratic office holders. Those who caucused for him were primarily young voters, both black and white, with a sprinkingly of voters my age.)
Now’s your chance, Dick– the Virginia primary is today and I still haven’t made up my mind. Why should I vote for Obama?
(By the way, I was leaning Obama until yesterday, when I saw the “why should Virginia vote for me” video his campaign sent out. In it, Obama brags that, unlike Hillary, he won’t make health insurance mandatory, but you can opt in at any time with no pre-existing conditions, etc. This is irresponsible in my view– this allows folks to simply game the system and enroll whenever they get sick. I believe Hillary has the more defensible, though less popular, solution. To have the position is one thing; for Obama to brag that this is why I should vote for him makes me significantly less likely to do so.)
What got me linked to Obama was his first book “Dreams from My Father.” It was written before he was running for any major office. It told the story of a person who understood other cultures and the problems of the dispossessed. It was not a decent, but rather trite, prelude to a campaign like the secvond book.
I don’t like Obama’s specific health care plan either. (Hi commercial is obviously pandering to conservative free market thinking in VA.) I dislike his lack of administrative experience and would have preferred Bayh or Richardson who have run states well and understand Washington too. But Obama has experience at the grass roots as a community organizer and state legislature that I consider far more relevant than Hillary’s vaunted 35 years of top down experience without responsibiity.
An Obama as President would immensely change America’s face to the world and has the potential to energize a new generation of Americans far more than Hillary. Bill and Hillary are “policy wonks,” but control of policy details did not make Bill or Jimmy Carter effective presidents. We need a new face, not someone who takes us back to the 1990s and brings huge baggage for the Republicans to exploit.
“Fired up and ready to go” for Obama (despite my age!)