Down to brass tacks

I must admit I was secretly hoping that John Edwards could pull a rabbit out of his hat in South Carolina and make a real go at the nomination. To my mind, his populist message is probably the most closely aligned with my own thinking, politically speaking. But with his resounding defeat in SC, that doesn’t really matter now. This is, for better or worse, a two person race, the winner of which will likely become President. Given that reality, the choice is simple – go Obama!

Now, I am not one of those people with a visceral dislike for Hillary, though I must say her speaking voice drives me nuts. Seriously, is it just me or is she, quite frequently, completely atonal? Anyway, I simply do not believe that she can be an effective President when 45% of the country cannot stand the sight of her. I think her nomination would galvanize the Right, unifying it behind a common enemy. Having Bill run around, acting like an ass, is not going to help matters either. There is just way too much baggage here.

And don’t get me wrong, it is not as though Obama is without sin. His scheme for Social Security is utterly wrong-headed and his healthcare plan hardly qualifies as bold or visionary. Potentially even more dangerous is his insistence that he can operate in a bipartisan fashion. If Obama thinks Mitch McConnell or John Boehner are going to roll over in the face of his bipartisan awesomeness, he is both foolish and naïve. In the very best of situations, one must negotiate with those snakes at arm’s length. Hopefully, he understands that today’s GOP views compromise as something that Democrats do.

That said, I do believe that Barack Obama could be a transformational figure in American politics; perhaps not FDR but maybe JFK. He has an historic opportunity before him. We, as a nation, have a lot of fences to mend. Electing a black liberal from Chicago, the anti-Bush really, will go a long way to proving to the rest of the world we are willing to listen to their concerns, rather dictate policy. We need a President that can show other nations that we have recovered from our collective 9/11 induced insanity, that we think torture is antithetical to our principles, that we value the opinions of our friends and allies, and that war is no longer the first option in American foreign policy. In short, we need someone that can restore our nations’ standing in the world. I believe that Barack Obama gives us the best chance to accomplish that.