Here's a message for reluctant Democrats, feminists and independents who can't seem to make up their minds and back Barack Obama: consider the alternative, and get over your existentialist angst. Too many things are at stake this year for any of us to be able to afford allowing John McCain to be elected by default.
For those who don't understand what I'm talking about, a little history lesson might be in order. In 1968, after Robert Kennedy's assassination, many of his and Senator Eugene McCarthy's supporters refused to back Hubert Humphrey, which gave us Richard Nixon, a prolonged Vietnam War and Watergate. And we can thank all the self-righteous radical purists who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 for eight years of George W. Bush, the Iraq War, soaring energy prices, a disastrous economic policy, governmental contempt for fundamental civil rights, and the most conservative Supreme Court in memory.
Do we want to get out of the Iraq quagmire? It will not happen if John McCain is elected in November. Do we want to preserve what's left of a woman's right to choose? John McCain considers his pro-life ideology to be non-negotiable. Whom do we want appointed to the Supreme Court? John McCain has promised more justices like Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. Do we want a realistic energy policy? Barack Obama intends to look to Al Gore for advice; John McCain is likely to ask the oil companies whom they would like to see as energy czar.
President Ford's belief in the existence of a free Poland in the October 1976 presidential debate ("I don't believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union") more than a decade before the collapse of the Soviet Union has long been considered the quintessential campaign gaffe. McCain's reference to a non-existent "Iraq-Pakistan border" should at least be a flashing yellow light for those who expect a U.S. president to have a grasp of foreign policy nuances.
Respected Republicans like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar and Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel have made it clear that they could live comfortably with, even be a part of, an Obama Administration. This should reassure independents and conservative Democrats alike.
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Indiana Governor Evan Bayh are among the prominent Clinton supporters who now enthusiastically campaign for Obama. This, together with Hillary Clinton's repeated endorsements of her former rival, should reassure the New York Senator's constituency.
Respected independent Democrats like Vice President Gore, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senators Joseph Biden and James Webb, and former Senator John Edwards enthusiastically back Obama. This should conclusively refute any suggestion that Senator Obama is somehow out of the mainstream.
Senator Clinton has called the Bush Administration's ever-increasing restrictions on women's access to birth control "a gratuitous, unnecessary insult to the women of the United States of America . These rules pose a dire threat to women's health, to health-care providers, and to uninsured and low-income Americans seeking care. It is a disgrace, but unfortunately it is not a surprise." McCain, meanwhile, refuses to even comment on why some insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control medication.
This leaves the scurrilous rumors that Obama is not a Christian (false), is a Moslem (false), has once upon a time been a Moslem (false), has taken his oath of office on a Koran (false), and that he and/or his wife Michelle somehow are terrorist or radical sympathizers (false, false, false). Senator Joe Lieberman will continue to try to scare elderly Jews in Florida into believing that Obama is less committed to Israel 's security than McCain even though Obama has an outstanding pro-Israel record, and failed flaks from the Bush White House will continue desperately disparaging Obama and defending McCain on cable news shows.
As the campaign heads toward November, anyone who thinks Al Gore would have made a better president than George W. Bush, that we should not have spent hundreds of billions upon billions of dollars on the Iraq misadventure that has cost thousands of lives, that a Gore Administration would have had better economic and energy policies than those that the next President will inherit, and that the next several Supreme Court appointments matter, must now confront one simple reality: John McCain will be more of the same, while Barack Obama will take us into a different direction. This election is our last opportunity to correct the course our country has been on for the past seven and a half years.
Menachem Z. Rosensaft is a lawyer in New York