I Can't Believe I'm Standing Up for Obama... But I Am
I am not a devotee or disciple. I am a skeptic, and remain somewhat skeptical. Still, over the past few weeks I have become convinced that Barack Obama is the better choice for the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. And, well... God help us all if that's not enough to make him president.
My conclusion is based on several components, but coheres around one theme. Besides what I have experienced as his superior demonstrations of strength, composure, restraint, and reasoning during their last two one-on-one debates, Senator Obama has structured his campaign around what I feel is an irrefutable truth: the United States government will never again function efficiently unless United States citizens force it to do so. His insistence that the U.S. government must serve its citizenry, and his acknowledgment that it will do so only if the citizenry once again holds its government accountable is a statement so simplistic that it is, for some, dismissible. It also happens to be a truism so profound that it might, I have come to hope, be unstoppable.
I don't agree with everything he says, and even find some of Senator Clinton's policy positions to be superior. (I'm sorry, but "If you make healthcare affordable enough, no one will choose not to buy it" doesn't hold water in my world. That's like saying if you made auto insurance cheap enough, no one would drive without it. They would. They do.) Still, I find his positions, and his explanations of those positions, to be equal to or superior to hers on nearly all other counts.
Furthermore -- and it's an important furthermore, since I defy anyone to be able to accurately decipher and predict whose "plans" are actually going to prove more effective in the real time of the real world -- I find him to be a more sincere proponent of his positions. I do not doubt Senator Clinton's heartfelt desire to do well for the American people. The crucial difference is she continues to insist she knows what's best for those people even as they reject her insistence, while Senator Obama states over and over that what he wants is to assist the American people in doing well for themselves. The most crucial way they can help themselves, he stresses, is to create a government that works for them in the ways they want it to, and to exercise oversight to ensure it achieves its missions. There must be accountability in order to have success, he says. To have accountability, there must be transparency. He encourages us to insist upon both, and once the view has been cleared, to keep our eyes peeled.
Some insist that's all he's saying, though I don't see that to be the case. What he is doing that might make it appear that way is repeatedly relating every idea and policy position back to that central theme. But he doesn't seem to be doing that solely out of a desire to stay "on message." He seems to be doing it as a result of his understanding that without those conditions of transparency and accountability being met, nothing else is possible. At least nothing other than what we've seen for the past seven, fifteen, twenty-three, or forty-odd years.
A government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It's not a revolutionary thought -- at least not like it was when the notion was first conceived. It is, however, a stunningly unusual platform for a contemporary presidential candidate. With increasing consistency, each of our more recent candidates has stressed what he is going to provide to the populace, either as an entitlement program, or as a tax break. Concurrently, we've recently endured a nearly decade-long period of previously unthinkable power grabbing and consolidation by the executive branch of our government. Of even greater concern than the power grabbing has been the purposeful erosion of the divisions between the executive, the judicial, and the legislative braches. Attorneys General refusing not only to indict, but even to testify truthfully; Justice Department employees enforcing executive branch vendettas, then refusing to appear in answer to subpoenas; Supreme Court justices ordering an end to the counting of votes. Senator Obama is not raising his flagship position out of the ether, or, as far as I can see, out of excessive opportunism or ambition. He's speaking out about a very real crisis -- one of existential proportions -- in the history, health, and wellbeing of our republic. And he's doing so without histrionics, with tremendous grace and understatement. He seems increasingly to me to be a man of vast insight, both in terms of what he's trying to accomplish, and in terms of his methods of attempting to accomplish it.
Contrast that with Senator Clinton's more recent methods. I took a great deal from the moment during their last debate when Senator Obama questioned Senator Clinton's belief that the best way to accomplish things was to be willing to fight for them. A combative stance, he suggested, is not necessarily the strongest position from which to maneuver. His point is absolutely correct. And the increasing emergence recently of her anger toward him, toward the press, and toward those who've voted against her -- and the ways it has backfired on her -- seems to bear Senator Obama's truth out.
But those are my more minor qualms with her recent behavior. We've now come to the most cynical stage of this particular campaign, with Senator Clinton participating in an advertisement that calls into question the safety of children sleeping in their homes in the Unites States. The ad suggests that of the two candidates, one can provide protection from unnamed threats in superior fashion to the other. It's an absurd argument. Not because, as her campaign suggests, anyone who questions it is questioning the legitimacy of a debate about national security. It's an absurd and ugly advertisement because it says nothing whatsoever about national security. It discusses no policy, and makes no comparisons other than one: I am to be trusted, he is not.
I'd suggest the ad indicates just the opposite. Not merely because it is repulsive, but because it is destructive -- knowingly so and purposefully so -- in pursuit of personal ambition. I make the charge because I do not believe Senator Clinton herself believes that children, or any other U.S. citizens, will actually be safer under an administration headed by herself, as opposed to Senator Obama. That's why I find the defense of the ads, and the pretense that they illustrate any kind of personally held belief, to be terribly sad. Because the choice Senator Clinton has now made with her advertising campaign has the potential, should she succeed in damaging Senator Obama's standing, to prove tragic for the nation come November.
As I've said, I have had no doubts as to the sincerity of Senator Clinton's wish to do well for the American people and their interests. I just no longer believe she has the wisdom or good judgment to know when her own private wishes have come into conflict with the interests of the rest of us. One doesn't have to look far or remember hard to know we've seen too much of that syndrome over the past seven years already.
Senators Clinton and Obama were asked during their most recent debate whether they'd come to regret any votes they've cast while holding public office. I have a regret to confess to. When I voted in the California primary less than four weeks ago, I pulled the lever for Senator Clinton. I now believe I was wrong. If Senator Obama had carried California the contest might be over by now. I hope the people of Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont will make better choices than I did last month, and settle the race decisively -- before Senator Clinton has the chance to do more damage in her quest to protect us while we sleep. I've come to trust the candidate who's encouraging us to wake up, and to protect ourselves - even, if need be, from our own government.
I hope I get the chance to vote for Senator Obama again. I am not a devotee or disciple. I am a skeptic, and remain somewhat skeptical. Still, over the past few weeks I have become convinced that Barack Obama is the better choice for the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. And, well...God help us all if that's not enough to make him president.
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I don't get it. There is nothing inspiring to me about him. He is the ultimate politician and people act like he is a saint who has descended long enough to get us on the right path. Washington will not change in one administration. The fact that you changed your opinion because you are so afraid you may have backed a loser and been held accountable for it sort of proves that. You think Hillary was a threat when she was the First Lady? Wait until you see Michelle Obama. I guess the next time she'll be proud to be an American is in 2012 when her husband tries to unseat President McCain. No man in this country will allow a woman to be president and the same people who are trying so hard to stop using the N word in polite conversation will never allow a black man to hold the office either.
Beautiful post--and so true. I've noticed that not only does Hillary put herself before the America, her supporters do too. Thank you.
Dear transparent, Yes, one of, if not the best writing I have seen on this subject..
I'm afraid that Sen. Clinton puts herself before ANY thing else; with the exception of her family (Chelsea). Her conniving scares hell out of me. Plant stories, then deny. I believe either she, her campaign, did it with her blessings; or perhaps Rove is still writing his filth!
I have been trying to express this cogently for weeks. Well said and well done.
He really nailed it. Well done Mr. Handler.
The Clinton "red phone" scare-you-out-of-your-wits ad is absurd on many levels. Let's think about this rationally for a mintue. If the terrorists attack, do they phone the White House beforehand? If a burglar breaks into your house, what is your best defense against the intruder? A firearm or Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office? Never have the words "get real" held such weight against Hillary Clinton's own message.
How many people are dressed in a nice (orange) business suit at 3 in the morning?
EVAN,
WELCOME TO THE CLUB.
OBAMA '08
Whenever someone mentions Hillary Clinton's "ambtion", I get the feeling that if she were a man, mention of ambition wouldn't even be an ssue. It never is. Clinton is on the attack as of late. To a lot of men, coming from a woman, there's an annoying grating and almost shrill quality to that. I suppose that women understand that bettter. I like what she's putting forth though. She makes powerful points and does it well. Her speeches in Texas these last few days have been on the mark. Her TV ad does smack of of that old child-with-wildflower atomic bomb goes boom TV ad when Johnson ran against Goldwater though and is a bit frightening. I'm not bothered by that though. What bothers me is her refusal to release her tax returns, something candidates for the presidency have usually done,. What is she afraid the American people will find out? It certainly doesn't take 6 months to get it all together for release either.
What bothers me about Obama is his insistence that he'll talk to the likes of the leader of Iran and others without preconditions. That's risky because in doing so, he has to come back with something . It's too risky that he'll cave into some major demand by the Iranians or the North Koreans who never keep their word. Such is the quandry of democratic voters then. I voted for Hillary in the California primary but haven't still made my mind up as to who woiuld make the better democratic candidate. Our options aren't the best but Clinton and Obama are all we have.
Steamboater
Funny you should bring up the "talk to our enemies" issue. Do some historical research: when Reagan decide he was going to engage the highest levels of the Soviet Union - including secret summits with the general secretary of the USSR himself - to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons and contain the arms race - he was resoundly attacked by all of the right wing pundits. Charles Krauthammer called Reagan "ignorant and pathetic" for talking to the USSR. George Will said he had elevated "wishful thinking to the status of a political philosophy." William Buckley suggested that talking to the USSR was like deciding one day that Adolf Hitler wasn't evil.
And yet, in hindsight, Reagan was right, and Krauthammer, Buckley, and Will were wrong. By talking to our enemy, Reagan advanced the cause of peace and prosperity in the world more than the five presidents that preceded him - and he did it all without wavering on his hard stance that the USSR was the "Evil Empire". That is why I am astonished that everyone is so quick to attack Obama as a fool on this point - of course talking to our enemies is appropriate when the time is right. Knowing when the time is right is the hard part and takes judgment that no amount of policy-number-crunching is going to reveal. Clearly a lack of historical perspective is a serious problem for the American voters.
And who went to China when our relations with them were at their nadir? Ummm ... let me guess. Could it have been that arch-liberal Richard Nixon, consorting with our enemies?
Golly gee, Andy, who'd a thunk it?
"..it will do so only if the citizenry once again holds its government accountable is a statement so simplistic that it is, for some, dismissible."
Great article, I agree! However, I think you mean "simple" rather than "simplistic". The definition of simplistic is extreme and misleading simplicity, oversimplification. You are making the argument that while Obama's arguments are simple, they are true and profound.
Sorry, I know I should let this pet peeve go...
Ellie, I disagree. As a member of the British-born grammar police, I think it's important to point out similar and easily-confused but disparate adjectives. I missed the distinction that you pointed out, but I'll be giving Evan a caution, now that it's been noted.
And before you tell me that you love my accent, I don't have one.
You do.
Good to know I have an ally across the pond! I have to disagree about the accent, though. I bet you also believe I drive on the wrong side of the road...
This kind of thinking harms us all : )
brilliant... couldn't have been better stated... thanks!
I think a major reason for Mrs. Clinton's wins in New York and California is that both states came early, before voters in those states had a chance to know Mr. Obama better. The results so far indicate that more and more people have come to recognize that Mr. Obama is what we need. Were the primaries of California and New York to be held a month from now, I think Mr. Obama would win.
Yes, absolutely. And the more we see and hear from HRC, the more appealing Obama appears as well. I would tell her to quit now, but that would be presumptuous, and disrespectful to the process.
a more appropriate title for this post would've been, "i can't believe i'm writing this post [and why people would care what my political opinion is]."
"Senator Obama has structured his campaign around what I feel is an irrefutable truth: the United States government will never again function efficiently unless United States citizens force it to do so. His insistence that the U.S. government must serve its citizenry, and his acknowledgment that it will do so only if the citizenry once again holds its government accountable is a statement so simplistic that it is, for some, dismissible."
i believe the dems won back the majority in 2006 but they've been so busy kowtowing to the republicans that in effect not much has changed for the citizenry. seemingly, the abuses have just been able to grow. the last time i checked, obama is a democrat. has he been working to make sure the government is accountable during his one year in the u.s. senate before he decided to run for the oval office? HuffPo, i understand you want to attract readership to your site, but really, your credibility is a bit ridiculous if you need every tom dick and celebrity to write their political opinion. well, they can write it. why must you publish it?
and PLEASE, can you get a bit more objective about the campaign coverage?
It's an opinion piece on an opinion site. Take your pills.
Opinions should be based on a few facts. If MSM had been diong their jobs, the slant of opinions might be different on this blog.
Here's the deal, Lenni. Obama has invigorated a stale citizenry, perversely with the help of a wholly corrupt Bush Administration's continued obscene attack on it's own population. The youth vote is larger than it has ever been. People are feeling optimistic that we can reclaim our country. Yes, we won in 2006 but we didn't have a majority that was filibuster-proof and this tied the hands of the Democrats. This next election will show that American voters can be engaged and can stay that way... with the right leader. Obama speaks to me for exactly the reasons that Mr. Handler states in this very well-written column. I applaud his reasoned and eloquent writing and am confused about why you have this response to his post in this way. Do you think that all op ed pieces need to be written by someone you deem "an authority"? Well, here's my take: all Americans should be this involved in their government. Why do you denigrate this writer... because you disagree with him or because you don't know who he is or don't care? All exchange of information is important, don't you think? It may not all be valid, but that becomes our job to sort out. I for one am very impressed with this post because it spares me from having to write this same thing over and over again to my friends and family members who are on the fence with this election. He spoke my mind!
Every day a few more perfectly respectable humans of the Democratic persuasion try to help me understand why I should shift my Democratic allegiances to Senator Obama. I see written on the wall the end of the Clinton candidacy, and will surely vote against Senator McCain. However, I remain unable to embrace Senator Obama (and therefore President Obama) with fervor, although I sincerely would like to. You have articulated the perfect scenario for this epiphany, and I respect you for it. I envy you, in fact. I seem to be one of the few people who cannot do this.
My prediction (based on studying Obama in some depth for some years): You will heartily support him in his 2012 landslide reelection victory.
LOL. Thanks for your support, Petey. I hope you're right.
Only YOU can convince yourself...we have little to do with your choices...
Who says you need "fervor." Support doesn't have to be orgiastic. My first donation to his campaign was $10.
What a great post!
Even though I have not yet voted and was never a hardcore supporter of Hillary Clinton, my views about her changed along similar lines. My vote could be taken as a protest vote against Hillary, as her supporters would love to speculate. But I feel very positive and optimistic about my vote FOR Obama because I simply like his authenticity. I am not delusional and do not think he will do everything perfectly, but I am counting on his ability to recognize failure and correct mistakes.
The Clinton ad, "Child," attempts to play off of our fears again, like what the Bush admin. has been doing. But I fear the reign of a Clinton more than a terrorist attack: I feel no personal responsibility in a terrorist attack, but I'd have to blame myself for voting for her into power.
Refreshing.
Another way Hillary seems a less "sincere proponent" of her positions: She consistently talks about the importance of "starting" with a certain position (we have to start with a health care plan that covers everyone...). It's an old-style-politics attitude that strongly suggests her positions are merely negotiating stances. She assumes the political process will whittle away any initiative, so she has to start by fighting for the whole hog, expecting some watered-down compromise to prevail in the end.
The way she talks about universal health care as a signature issue for democrats since the 1950s is worrisome. To me she sounds like she's rather content to identify with the fight itself rather than the results of the fight. Her mindset is positioned to yield the kind of healthcare reform we saw in her husband's administration: demand universal, get mad at the bad guys who block it, claim some limited success (e.g. CHIP), and continue to hold up the greater struggle as a signature issue -- a worthy goal.
Barack's strategy seems altogether different. He wants to bypass the gridlock portion of the political process by going straight to the people. In keeping with his philosophy of transparency, he plans to air all healthcare deliberations on C-SPAN, asking the people to be an integral part of the whole process (as compared to Hillary's closed-door efforts in the 90s). Meanwhile, he's already working to build a mandate now during the campaign. By educating, leading, changing minds, setting an example, bringing people together, he expects to *actually* achieve what he's proposing. It's a different political paradigm altogether.
isn't voting for someone rather than against someone else refreshing?
in our lifetimes that feeling has become rare...
d
Good comment! I have become used to voting for the candidate that I disliked the least, so this year is very exciting for me.
Good comment! I have become used to voting for the candidate that I disliked the least,
________________________________________________________
Over thirty years ago, that great wit Mort Sahl called this "voting for the evil of two lessers."
A Hillary/McCain contest would be the perfect example.
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