Sunday, February 03, 2008

My Beef with Barack Obama

Once upon a time, a man entered into a hateful world preaching words of peace and hope. The man died at the hands of those he tried to help. He was thirty-three years old.

No I am not trying to say that Barack Obama is comparable to Jesus Christ, but I do believe that a message of hope is a dangerous one to preach…particularly to a people that are truly not ready to listen.

Every day I shift allegiance between Barack and Hilary, mostly conceding to go with whatever the current polls are reporting. Hilary appeals to my logic and sensibilities, while Barack pulls at my heartstrings. Reflecting my own values, I have most often sided with Hilary. She is a more electable candidate with more experience, clout, and defined initiatives. Barack is inspiring, young, charismatic, but lacks the credibility that can propel him into the presidency.

Strategically, Hilary is a shoe in for the democratic candidate. McCain will most likely be the republican candidate, and he is a VERY strong candidate. He has limitless experience, charisma, intelligence, and a war veteran to boot. Not only that, he is fairly liberal. The Democratic party will have to enter a strong candidate if they wish to defeat the Republican candidate. So we have Hilary and Obama, neither of which will have an easy fight. But who has the better chance. I say Hilary solely on the basis that she has strength in the same areas as McCain (experience and policies) but also has the advantage of the nations current anti-Republican sentiments. Obama would truly be pitting radical versus moderate change. That fight would be lost in the same way that Kerry lost the election. We are forgetting the demographics of this nation. We, as educated young people look around us and see this tremendous momentum for Barack, but we do not consider the fact that most of this country does not believe in undefined change. America can only take so much change and I am afraid Obama crosses that line of moderation.

I am even switching my mind as I speak this. Obama won South Carolina, but more importantly, he did so with more Democratic voters showing up than the Republican voters of 2004. What that means, in a red state, he could win the democratic vote assuming that voters supported their parties candidates. Something to think about. Perhaps things are more ready for change than we think. Contrarily, Bill Clinton hit on a good point when he stated that Jesse Jackson won that state in 1988 (I think that was the year). He was pointing out that a widely supported African American candidate could win in South Carolina because of the large numbers of African Americans, not because of the popularity of his policies.

Switching speeds. Let’s think about what would happen if Barack wins. First, he has to escape the inevitable risk of assassination. I will be the first to admit that times have changed for a black man running for president, it really seems feasible these days to have a black president. But, the risk is there. My thinking would put him at highest risk the moment it seems that he will win the democratic nomination. If after Super Tuesday, he has a commanding lead, he better double his bodyguards. Luckily, he is probably more valuable alive than dead, in the eyes of his opponents. Barack is more likely to loose the general election than Hilary, but who knows. So lets say he gets elected, and survives long enough to shake things up in Washington. The message of ‘I am going to change Washington’ is dangerous because Washington cannot be changed by one man. Washington was built on distributed authority, between the White House and Congress. One cannot make real change without the other, it is the safeguard built into our government to prevent dictators and such. So in order to actually create the change that he speaks of, Barack needs to have the support of those he is trying to change. People do not like change, and congressmen are people too.

The most terrifying result of an Obama election is a stalemate between a wishful president and a stubborn congress. It will be nearly as bad as having an incompetent president and a semi-intelligent congress. I like Barack, and I want to vote for him, but I do not think the time is right. There would need to be a middle (wo)man between what Barack wishes to do and what can be done in the current situations. The world needs to be ‘softened up’ to his kind of change. Who can best do that, Hilary! She knows how to play the game. She is a bit slimy, a bit too political, but that is the game they are playing. She is trained in the ways of Washington. I once watched a movie where a card prodigy enters a poker game with slightly less talented players. All was well until, unbeknownst to him, the other players started playing by their own rules. Through cheating, his opponents put the best player into a large amount of debt that essentially kept him in their pocket. The moral, you can only succeed to the level in which you understand the game. The game of Washington seems to far removed from hope and optimism to enable Barack’s success.

I still am pulling for the guy though. If the giants can win, Barack can have a successful presidency. Anything is possible.

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