Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Where I Stand on the Presidential Primaries

Since I'll probably devote a large number of keystrokes in the coming months to the presidential election, I figured I'd share my thoughts so you know where I'm coming from.

First, I've become a huge supporter of Barack Obama. Early on, I was pulling for John Edwards...until I heard Obama speak the night he lost the New Hampshire primary. The whole thing was and incredible speech, but one line in particular has stuck in my mind:

"In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."


I'll admit, after watching the Republican Party systematically destroy our nation domestically and on the world stage while the American people battled over trivial shit like abortion and gay marriage, I felt like an outsider in an increasingly backwards nation. This country felt less and less like home. But the nation's response to the Obama campaign has been amazing. It has shown that there are vast numbers of people who desperately want to but our country back on the right path.

However, I'm still skeptical that anything can be done. Far too many Americans insist America can do no wrong, and anything is justified if we do it. And far too many Americans simply don't care or don't pay attention.

Nevertheless, as Obama has said, there is nothing wrong with hoping for a better future because it compels us to do the work necessary to realize that future. That's the attitude we need to turn this nation around. Furthermore, the fact that Obama has focused on the issues that truly matter has been incredibly refreshing. He's the first candidate who has ever inspired me to donate to a campaign, and I'm clearly not the first as Obama's online fundraising has shown. I don't know if he'll be able to overcome the ignoramuses, but I have hope, and it seems huge swaths of the American people feel the same way.

As for Hillary Clinton, I was pretty much neutral towards her, but I intended to vote for her if she won the nomination. Never again will I vote for a Republican. However, she showed an appalling sense of entitlement to the presidency and proved she was no better than Bush in the way she surrounded herself with ideologues and sycophants. I probably still would have voted for her, but I would have been torn by the decision. Luckily, the delegate math makes it impossible for her to win at this point, and the superdelegates won't go against the votes of the people.

As for John McCain, I'm sure he would be an improvement over Bush, but he strikes me as hopelessly out of touch with the general mood in the country. Besides, after the sheer criminality of the Bush Administration, I don't think I can will myself to vote for a Republican ever again. Regrettably, I cast my first vote for president for Bush in 2004. I learned firsthand the perils of not paying enough attention, and I won't ever make that mistake again.

Anyway, I just wanted to establish my position on the whole thing since I sat out blogging during the interesting part of the primaries, alas.

1 comment:

  1. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Obama campaign is how far it's come using small donor, on-line contributions. It is a far cry from saying the age of special interests is over but if future campaigns and politicians follow his method... the impact on special interests and big bussiness donations could be dramatically reduced. Yet another wonderful tid-bit of hope from the Obama campaign.

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