I have not been a fan of recent Democratic candidates. John Kerry, Al Gore and even Bill Clinton never got me excited about voting, and I’ll go on the record now as being one of the many who chose to vote for Ralph Nader in 2000. Don’t worry — my vote didn’t make a difference, as I lived in Indiana and the state went overwhelmingly Republican. A thousand more votes for Gore in Indiana wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the election.
But Obama? Wow. He’s amazing. It’s the first time in my adult life I am genuinely thrilled to vote for a presidential candidate. I know, I know….he’s inexperienced and his speeches are vague, right? Even my beloved New York Times admits he’s less than specific. That said, I believe that Obama is exactly what the US needs right now. We’ve had 7 and 1/2 years of deception and missteps. It’s time to have a president who is smart, honest and informed. We need someone who can come into office with the energy and interest to take on the mess left behind by Bush and Co. And it looks like Obama can handle the job. Obama is no Jimmy Carter. He’s someone who might be able to breathe some life into Washington, and his outsider status is not a liability, but a strength.
I’d like to be more specific, but the American people can find the details of Obama’s platform all over the internet. If it’s less vague-ness they’re looking for, I have confidence they can find it. But what really matters to me in this election is vision. McCain has none, as the Daily Show with John Stewart illustrated so well here. As Stewart suggests, it’s pretty great to see citizens of foreign countries waving American flags after so many years of having them burned, and Obama has the potential to continue showing the world that Americans aren’t all that they think we are (selfish, boorish, violent, imperialist). Finally, we might be able to have a president we’re proud to send abroad.
About the oil crisis. I’ll save my longer response for another day, but does anyone remember the energy crises of 1973 and 1979 when Americans were talking excitedly about becoming less dependent on foreign oil? What happened? The short story is that the price of oil went down in the 80s and Americans, being the short-sighted folks that we are, happily bought SUVs and trucks as though there would never be a problem again. Environmentalists and realists were warning us that we would be paying for this inattention years later and sure enough, we’re paying to the tune of $4.25+ a gallon. It’s my turn to whine, now: why can’t we create a sustainable energy policy and stick with it, even when the economy gets “good” again? What the heck is wrong with us? I hope we can turn it around, and as I said above, Obama offers us the possibility for creating and enforcing policies that are intelligent and have long-term vision.
One last thing before I go to respond to something my Dad brought up in his last post. I agree that only US citizens should be allowed to vote. However, the Right is raising the spectre of non-citizen voting as yet another lame attempt to draw attention away from Obama and other things that need our attention (Iraq War, for starters?). Yes, we should watch out for voter fraud of all types (Florida Republicans, I’m looking at you). Non-citizens voting is and should be considered fraud. The few counties in which non-citizens are legally allowed to vote have restrictions on those votes and they are almost always to allow parents of children to vote for School Board, not in presidential elections.
In fact, the people we should be worried about are the people on the Right who make it difficult for LEGAL US citizens to vote by striking voters from the records at the last minute in “error.” In Florida, thousands of legal and registered black voters were purged from the rolls while Hispanic voters, who tend to vote Republican, were kept on the list. The issue is being investigated, but it doesn’t help that Florida conveniently threw out the list.
Get real, Republicans. Stop wasting our time on fictional problems and start paying attention to issues that matter, like the economy and the war. Or, keep babbling on about your made-up problems and watch Americans rally around Obama in November. That will be fine with me.
