Seattle Times: Obama
Post Intelligencer: Obama
Obviously, I’m going to vote for Obama because my views align closely with the Democratic Party. But regardless of his policies, what I really like about him is his ability to inspire others. Did you see that picture in St. Louis where over 100,000+ came to see him speak? Of course there is the historic speech in 2004, but even his speech this year at the convention moved me. When was the last time this many people were energized over the President? I know this sounds cheesy, but hearing him speak, it inspires me to be a better citizen.
The other thing about Obama is his intelligence. I don’t get the people who think sounding professorial or graduating from Columbia and Harvard is a bad thing. This is actually a good thing. Like many people I talk to, I want someone smarter than me running our country, the more elite, the better. From the Seattle Times Editorials:
From the PI Editorials:
Post Intelligencer: Obama
Obviously, I’m going to vote for Obama because my views align closely with the Democratic Party. But regardless of his policies, what I really like about him is his ability to inspire others. Did you see that picture in St. Louis where over 100,000+ came to see him speak? Of course there is the historic speech in 2004, but even his speech this year at the convention moved me. When was the last time this many people were energized over the President? I know this sounds cheesy, but hearing him speak, it inspires me to be a better citizen.
The other thing about Obama is his intelligence. I don’t get the people who think sounding professorial or graduating from Columbia and Harvard is a bad thing. This is actually a good thing. Like many people I talk to, I want someone smarter than me running our country, the more elite, the better. From the Seattle Times Editorials:
Obama is a little young, but also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that's OK. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip.
From the PI Editorials:
If the country ever needed new direction under a fresh, steady, calm president, this is the time. Sen. Barack Obama is the country's hope, the kind of promising, intelligent leader who comes along perhaps once in a generation.
Vote for Obama if you want a “once in a generation” leader.
Vote for McCain if:
· your household income is over $250,000.
· you think Obama is a terrorist (he’s not).
· you think Palin is qualified to take over as President
I’m not going to spend time going through all the issues. You can read a quick Seattle Times Summary.
2 comments:
In this election, both parties have tickets that each of them wish (or should wish) they could replace with different candidates. On the Republican side, McCain has always been considered not “Republican enough” based on his break from the party on issues such as immigration, campaign finance reform, and tax cuts. Part of his appeal to some in the middle is his willingness to break from the party on issues in attempt to get something done. As the race as progressed, he has reluctantly shifted his positions on these issues back to the right in order to win back the base. My guess is that if he were elected President, he would shift back to the left on some issues because I think he believes a compromise to get things done is better for the country than engaging in partisan bickering. Part of the problem in Washington (DC) is that people place Party over Country and aren’t willing to come to the middle to solve anything. I like McCain because he has shown he is willing to do just that.
On the Democrat side, if they are being intellectually honest with themselves, they would conclude that Obama is not qualified to be President. There is no doubt that Obama is an intelligent and inspiring man and an excellent public speaker, and I like him as a person. In fact, if he were running for senior class president I would vote for him. But is this enough to run the US and lead the world? No doubt he would surround himself with experienced and intelligent advisors, every president does, but in the end it comes down to him being able to exercise the right judgment based on the input from those advisors. I think about this in the context of my own life. In my job I exercise judgment on accounting and business issues on a daily basis. I look at the facts and circumstances and use my judgment in making a decision. However, my judgment comes from years of experience in seeing these issues and making decisions and drawing on those past experiences when I’m deciding on a current issue. The message from the Obama camp seems to be that we should ignore his inexperience because he has good judgment. However, I’m not sure how they are drawing that conclusion given his thin record and lack of accomplishments on legislative and leadership issues. How exactly has he developed this judgment they are advertising, but has not yet really been shown? The Obama camp all but acknowledged his inexperience with the pick of Joe Biden as the VP. Since he has 30 years of experience in the Senate, he would bring experience to a ticket that was using “Change” and “Hope” as their selling points. Having a 30-year Washington insider on the ticket would seem to contradict the “Change” argument, but I haven’t seen much discussion on it. I’m just glad they’ve stopped mentioning in every speech and news story that Joe Biden took the train home to Delaware every night. As for “Hope”, I’ve got my own and don’t look to the government for that. And to paraphrase a Republican bumper sticker I saw the other day (which is a rare occurrence in this area), “hoping” is probably not the best strategy for us right now. In an effort to maintain balance, I will also quote some Democrat bumper stickers I’ve recently seen: “BUSH LIED, KIDS DIED!”; “WAR IS TERRORISM!”; “HALLIBURTON!”; and other drivel….
Now to be fair, the Republicans fell of their “Experience” message somewhat with the selection of Sarah Palin as their VP. Does she have any background in foreign policy and affairs? Nope. But she does have experience in running a government and working with other parties. Of course she’s only been a governor for a couple of years, so her experience is still an issue. The Obama camp, and through extension the main stream media, likes to point out that she has no more experience than Obama. But compared to Obama, it’s still two years more than he has, plus she has experience in energy issues which are important right now. On that point, the comparison of Palin’s experience (in the #2 position) vs. Obama’s experience (in the #1 position) is invalid. The assumption is that McCain is going to kick the bucket 5 days into his Presidency and Palin is going to be in charge. Even I don’t like that scenario. But let’s look at this realistically. What are the odds that McCain is going to die while in office? I don’t know, nobody does. But let’s say 10%, 30%. Heck, let’s go as far as saying there is a 50% chance that McCain will die within two weeks. Since math is fun, let’s draw this to its illogical conclusion. If McCain is elected, there is a 50% chance that an unqualified and inexperienced person will be President. If Obama is elected, there is a 100% chance. You do the math.
On the topic of Palin, I don’t quite understand the vitriol and downright hatred directed towards her. Questions on her experience are warranted, but I wish the same scrutiny and level of questioning given to her would have also been applied to Obama/Biden by Katie Couric and Charles Gibson.
Taxes and the economy are complicated issues, probably above my IQ (which is not as high as Joe Biden’s as I’m sure he’d tell you…see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyEqyYUGk4I if you don’t know what I’m referring to…it’s hilarious). To oversimplify, I guess it boils down to whether you think economic prosperity “trickles up” from the taxpayer to businesses/macro economy, or "trickles down” from businesses/macro economy to the tax payer. The Democrat line of thought seems to be tax cuts for taxpayers would result in more prosperity for the tax payer and tax cuts for corporations are bad because they make so much money anyway. Especially Big Oil and Big Walmart (and soon after the Democrats control all branches, this list of villains will also include Big Software, Big High-End Clothing Retailer, and Big Timber and so on). Now I entirely agree with the tax cut for tax payers part, and in fact, less taxes across the board is the mantra of the Republican party. Where the parties diverge is on the issue of taxes on business/corporations. The Democrats seem to think that any tax break for corporations is a direct withdrawal from the checking account of the workin’ man. This is consistent with their notion that there is only a certain amount of wealth and prosperity available, and the only way to fix things is to move it around a little. The idea that individuals and businesses can go out and create new wealth is considered preposterous. They also ignore the implications that higher taxes would have on businesses, such as slower growth, passing those costs to consumers through price increases, and job cuts. If your employer is paying higher taxes and are therefore less profitable, what costs do you think they are likely to cut to maintain their profitability? Happy Severance Check! The Republicans correctly recognize that businesses do better when paying fewer taxes, using that money to grow their businesses and create new jobs. Also consider how increasing taxes on the rich would affect you. I’m not talking about the super rich, but the $250, 000 rich as defined by Obama…although that figure seems to be going downward during this last week. First, they probably aren’t as rich as they were a month or so ago considering the recent stock market events. Second, as my household has taken a look at discretionary purchases recently, isn’t it likely that this group will also reconsider their discretionary spending habits? I’m not saying they are going to be buying Safeway brand ketchup, but I think they would reconsider that new BMW purchase, or perhaps more relevant to the likely readers of this blog, their Nordstrom shopping sprees.
I like Randy’s suggestion format so I will continue it here:
Vote for McCain if:
• You aspire to ever have a household income over $250,000.
• You believe you know how to spend your money better than the government does.
Vote for Obama if:
• You are easily distracted by shiny objects.
• You believe everything you hear on an infomercial.
• You were so impressed by your last visit to the DMV that you think that level of service and warmth would be a good thing when you go to the doctor.
Great Comment! Good to hear from the "other side." ummm... wait... what's that? a shiny object... ahhh... oooh... wow... oh, sorry, I got distracted. =)
Anyway, I happened to read a Time Magazine article on Presidential Temperament. Take a look, an interesting read (temperament here is also throwing in intellect and instinct, etc.)However, after talking about the two candidates, it seems to pretty much say that there is no one perfect Presidential Temperament. Which makes sense, since the article also indicates "Not only can't you know what a President will face, but his reflexes in one crisis may not be typical of how he responds to another."
For me though, temperament doesn't really matter because I will vote the issues. If in an alternate universe, the Democratic ticket had the personality of McCain and Palin, but held the beliefs of Obama and Biden, I would still vote for the Democrats. I don't think this is normal compared to others, but you'll see it on other parts of my recommendations. I vote for the issues, and not the person, because, again, I'm not going to be interacting with the person. I figure anyone who can make it through and earn their party's nomination for President is good enough. Maybe not the best, and maybe not even better than the other candidate, but if it's close enough, I'll always vote for the person whose stances I agree with. So in this alternate universe, my blog posting would've probably looked like Redguy's in relation to experience and qualifications and Palin, etc. However, in this world, I just happen to be able to vote for a candidate in Obama, whose stances and beliefs I also believe in, but also think he is the better candidate overall (the formula in this case would be = Obama's Pros minus Cons > McCain's Pros minus Cons).
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