Mike Thomas has posted his reasons for supporting Senator Barack Obama in the upcoming election. While he was asked to do so without talking about the Republicans or John McCain, in the end he spent about a quarter of the post doing just that. Be that as it may, let’s take a look at his reasons for supporting Obama:
By early March as the Texas primary was approaching it was already becoming clear that Hillary had squandered her chances and had fallen too far behind in the delegate count to win the nomination. As a practical matter, I decided to support Obama at that point on the grounds that a victory in Texas would slam the door on Hillary and bring a quick conclusion to the Democratic primary race.
This is probably the most solid reason Mike gives for his support. Most Democrats had come to the same conclusion he did after the Texas and Ohio primaries were over. However, time has proven his assertion that “Hillary had squandered her chances” was incorrect. Hillary still has huge support among Democrats and liberals, and has vowed to continue to fight for the nomination all the way to the convention floor. So much for a quick conclusion, huh?
While he is relatively young - 46 - he has more than enough experience and qualifications to be president. Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School where he also held the prestigious position as editor of the Harvard Law Review and then went on to teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago for several years. But rather than cashing in by joining a big law firm in the private sector where he could have made a lot of money very easily, he chose instead to launch a career in public service, first as a community organizer and later as a State Senator and then U.S. Senator from Illinois.
Certainly, Senator Obama’s education has prepared him well — for a career in the legal profession. His political experience, however, is severely lacking at this time. If Obama had, instead of running for the Senate, run for the governorship of Illinois after his time in the State legislature, the experience would have provided invaluable knowledge and insight to him and would have better prepared him for the office he is now seeking. The problem he has now is convincing people that a mere two years in the Senate has adequately prepared him to run the country. Keep in mind that for the better part of the past year, Obama has been on the road campaigning and not paying much attention to his Senatorial duties. This isn’t to say he is neglecting those duties; just that he isn’t gaining eny experience from them at this time.
And in the U.S. Senate he has worked with Republicans like Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Richard Lugar of Indiana to pass bipartisan legislation. Obama is far from being the extreme left partisan caricature portrayed by right-wing radio and web sites. While he is unabashedly progressive in his politics, he is not an ideologue and believes above all else in promoting good government policies that benefit rather than burden the citizenry.
Despite working on one or two bills with Republicans, Senator Obama is clearly one of the most liberal members of the Senate. In fact, in 2007 he was found to be the most liberal member of the Senate by National Journal’s 27th annual vote ratings. In the two years leading up to 2007 he was ranked 16th and 10th, respectively, so it is clear that Senator Obama is skewing way to the left policy-wise. Despite what Mike has said, Obama has clearly earned his designation as a partisan Democrat.
While I’m not supposed to veer off into bashing Republicans, I have to stop here and say one of the key differences between the parties today that drives my voting decisions is my perception that Democrats, as opposed to Republicans, truly believe in and support good government. By “good government” I mean the kind of government that is beneficial to the people and accomplishes its goals in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
This, in my opinion, is where Mike enters fantasyland. Government never has, and never will, do anything in an efficient and cost-effective manner. It doesn’t matter which party is running Congress or has control of the White House, it just isn’t possible for something as huge and bloated as the Federal Government to run anything without slowing it down while driving up its cost. Look at Social Security; supposedly the pride of the Democrats, this program will bankrupt the Federal Budget in the not-too-distant future while still providing only a pittance to the people who receive it. It is also wrought with fraud and incompetence from both within and without. Finally, Social Security isn’t the only government-run agency like this; Medicare, welfare, the whole AmTrak debacle, etc. are all text-book examples of how not to run an agency. Nothing which is run this poorly can be considered a “benefit” to anyone.
Republicans long ago were co-opted by a radical faction that believes that every government program is bad, government is always the problem and never the answer and that privatization is the ultimate answer to everything. So they practice what I call “bad government” and intentionally try to block, deter, ignore, starve or otherwise gum up government programs just to prove that they don’t work.
Leave it to a liberal to think that it is radical to believe that government isn’t the answer to everything. Further, conservatives don’t believe that every government program is bad; we believe that almost all government programs are run inefficiently and therefore cost a lot more than they should. We also believe that in almost every category, the same program run by the private sector can be run much more efficiently and at a greatly reduced cost to taxpayers. Liberals never seem to have in mind how much it costs the taxpayers to run these programs, which is why they’re always raising taxes on those same taxpayers to pay for these programs. Of course, more taxes collected equals more power to them, which is the ultimate goal for every elected Democrat.
The rest of the post is filled with platitudes designed to make people who agree with Mike feel better about Obama, so there isn’t any reason to dispute them. I personally believe that Senator Obama’s complete lack of Foreign Policy experience is a huge liability for this nation, should he win, and will lead to certain disaster at some point during his term. His remarks during the campaign concerning the War in Iraq show him to be someone who has no idea about how to conduct himself as Commander-in-Chief of the military, and that he thinks he knows better about military matters than people who have been trained and have served for many years. Again, this will lead to disaster during his term if he is elected.
Senator Obama is not a bad man; he is just an inexperienced, naive candidate who should get a few years more experience under his belt before trying to win the Presidency. Unfortunately, it would be dangerous for the United States if we had an inexperienced and naive President, especially during a time of war.
May 15th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Nick,
I am the original blogger who asked Mike to respond to why he supports Obama. You can read my response here: http://stevekroll.net/why-do-you-support-barack-obama-part-2/politics/
I have added you to my list of sites to read and I look forward to future posts. Thanks!
-Steve
May 16th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Nick,
I still believe Hillary was finished before the Texas primary. She is certainly through now and the Edwards endosement of Obama sealed it.
But perhaps the lengthy primary fight wasn’t such a bad thing for Democrats afterall, as
Jonathan Gurwitz points out in his latest column. There is something to be said for building up grassroots, get-out-the-vote operations in all 50 states. I think at this point Hillary should stay in until the last primary for that very reason.
Obama’s education and intellect will be a welcome contrast to that of the C-student, Yale-legacy, frat boy currently occupying the White House. But his political experience too is not as sparse as you claim. He has more experience than Abraham Lincoln did, for example, and many other notable presidents as well. And if you want to ding him for not being a governor, they you have to do the same thing to John McCain.
Ultimately, the thing more important than the candidate’s personal experience is the quality of people he or she will surround themselves with once in office. That is what we are really fighting about. The opportunity to appoint hundreds of people to high-level government posts in all areas of the government. Bush has had this power for the past eight years and the results have ranged from uninspiring to outright disasterous.
The National Journal vote ranking that determined Obama had the most liberal voting record in the Senate used a flawed methodology as is detailed here. You can see a more accurate study here where Obama ranks as the 10th most liberal, not No. 1.
That’s still pretty liberal, but it doesn’t sound as good in TV ads and news bytes as saying he is the MOST liberal.
Government never has, and never will, do anything in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
Nick, why do you hate America?? (Just kidding!)
But seriously, how can you believe we have the best country in the world if you are so down on our government? There are lots of things that governments HAVE to do - that the private sector can’t or will not do - that our government does better than any other country in the world. Social Security and Medicare are hugely successful at keeping millions of Americans out of poverty and allowing us to have a thriving Middle Class that drives our economy. Sure there are things we can do better and lots of room for improvement, but this nonsense about how it is all bad and needs to be pitched out the window is a crock.
And as for “certain disaster” should Obama be elected, how the heck do you define “disaster” anyway? Because the Bush administration has been pretty much one long sustained disaster since day one.
People don’t think it can get any worse under a Democratic president and that is why the Republicans are going to lose in November. They can’t even hang onto solidly conservative congressional seats in Louisiana and Mississippi, so what makes you think they could win back the White House following the term of the most unpopular president in U.S. history?
May 16th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Mike:
1. Regarding the alleged “flaws” in the Journal rankings, the authors says that because missed votes were not included, the ranking is flawed. Excuse me? How can you rank a vote if it wasn’t cast? Logically, you can only evaluate votes which were cast. Obama voted liberal 65 of 66 votes (98.5%) while Hillary voted liberal 77 of 82 votes (93.9%). Yeah, I’d say Obama was more liberal.
2. Ultimately, the thing more important than the candidate’s personal experience is the quality of people he or she will surround themselves with once in office.
Really? What do you imagine a cabinet made up of people like Reverend Wright and William Ayers would be like? Will Obama sit around for eight years and never hear anything they say just like at his church? Are these people of the quality he is going to appoint? If so, your doomed.
As for the glib remark regarding Bush’s college education, you do realize that Gore was thrown out of school, right? I bet you didn’t much care about a candidate’s education in 2000, did you? If so, how can you possibly reconcile that with support for Gore?
3. Yes, there are certain things that a Federal government must do. These include National Defense, promulgation of laws, and judicial matters. It does not include guaranteeing equal outcomes for everyone regardless of talent or merit. It does not include eternal welfare for the lazy, and it certainly does not include taking hard-earned revenue from productive people and then turning around and giving it to others who have done nothing to earn it to win votes.
Again, I never said to get rid of all of it or that all of it was bad. I said it was bloated and inefficient and could be run better via private enterprise. Competition always reduces costs and improves service. The way it is now, you have thousands of civil servants in jobs from which they can not be fired who couldn’t care less if they get around to helping anyone running almost every entitlement program in the government. And you want to graft everyone’s healthcare into this mess?
4. I define certain disaster as putting a person with absolutely no foreign policy experience in charge of foreign policy in a time of war. I define certain disaster as putting a man who finds nothing wrong with a racist minister over a 20 year period in charge of this nation. I define certain disaster as electing someone as President whose only qualification is that he can make people think he is some type of god-like figure who can do no wrong. I define certain disaster as the election of Barack Obama as President.
May 17th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
“Ultimately, the thing more important than the candidate’s personal experience is the quality of people he or she will surround themselves with once in office.”
President Obama would be looking to appoint easy scapegoats, if his current serial condemnations of his staff for his own blunders is any indication. Jake Tapper has now documented fourteen - count ‘em, fourteen - occasions where Blessed Barack has shunted blame for gaffes onto the shoulders of his unworthy underlings.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:34 am
I knew there was a reason why Jake Tapper gets the Wanker of the Day designation so often.
I’m sure if you go back through any sustained presidential campaign you can find a long list of people who were pushed out or resigned for one political reason or another. Why, just look at the news today. Now it’s McCain’s biggest supporter here in San Antonio being forced to take the fall.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Mike fails to comprehend the difference between a supporter being forced to disassociate from a campaign (as did Jeremiah Wright from his position as “spiritual advisor” to Obama’s campaign) and the finger-pointing of Obama in blaming his staff, fourteen times in public, for mistakes.
“Hillary was finished before the Texas primary. She is certainly through now”
Today’s delegate count (prior to KY and OR):
Obama - 1,913 (52.6%)
Clinton - 1,721 (47.4%)
Gosh, how can Hillary dare to stay in the race when she is a whopping 5% behind!?
Perhaps the desperate, unjustified demands for Hillary to bow out prior to the convention are what is increasing feminist disgust with Obama:
Geraldine Ferraro, calling Barack Obama “sexist,” may not back him
May 20th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Oh, I see. Having a candidate admit that his staff screwed up on several occasions is much worse than kicking the national finance co-chair out on his rear along with four other senior staff members. Thanks for clearing that up, Aquinas.
And has anyone done a count to see how many times McCain has blamed (or cussed out) his staff for anything? Hmmmm. I didn’t think so.
how can Hillary dare to stay in the race when she is a whopping 5% behind!?
Whopping is right. Since there is no way she can make up that difference with the remaining states yet to hold primaries. It’s over and has been for some time and only the kool-aid drinkers in the campaign won’t admit it.
I saw the Geraldine Ferraro quote and all I could think of was a double-bill keynote address at the Republican National Convention this fall of disgruntled former Democratic VP candidates. A Lieberman-Ferraro one-two punch will be just the ticket to save the Republican brand this year. HaHaHa!
May 20th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I define certain disaster as the election of Barack Obama as President.
I assume, Nick, that you mean disaster for the Republican Party. Cuz that is indeed true.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
It’s really sad to the point of pathetic to see young minds devoted to republican bullshit. Stop listening to your bigoted relatives, put down your copy of Atlas Shrugged and get real.
May 20th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Biff:
If all of your arguments are going to be scatological, you’re not really adding anything to the discussion. Also, insulting my relatives, none of which you know, is a sure way to get banned.
If you have something intelligent to add to the discussion, you are welcome. If not, go somewhere else.
May 20th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Mike:
Anyone who measures the size of the threat from an enemy entirely by the amount of money they spend on their military as compared to what the US spends on their military is dangerously ignorant. No wonder terrorists agree - Vote for Obama.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:20 am
Nick, anyone who deliberately misrepresents their opponents’ position deserves to lose the debate. On what do you base your implication that Obama calulates the risk of threat “entirely” based on the amount of money spent on military expenditures? What a ridiculous statement - surpassed only by the specious hyperbole of “terrorists agree - vote for Obama.” That is exactly the kind of c*** that most people in this country are sick of, and one reason why George Bush’s approval ratings are in the toilet. Military spending is certainly one factor to consider but, as any moron knows, it is hardly the only one.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Ann:
Again, did you even bother to look at the video or read the quotes in the article? Here’s the money quote:
“Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. … You know, Iran, they spend 1/100th of what we spend on the military. I mean, if Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they would — they wouldn’t stand a chance.”
I didn’t lie about anything. I especially didn’t lie about Obama coming out the following day and saying that Iran was a “grave” threat. Well, Obamessiah, which is it? Is Iran a “grave” threat or is it “not a serious” threat?
I agree, any moron would know that you can’t measure the threat a enemy poses by just the amount of money they spend on the military. Given that, are you saying that Obama is a moron, or that he is less intelligent than a moron?
May 21st, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I didn’t say that you lied, Nick. I said that you misrepresented what Obama was saying, and you did. You do so by parsing his words and taking them out of context, and you do so deliberately. I’m glad you agree that any moron would know that you can’t measure the threat an enemy poses by just the amount of money they spend on the military, which is what you implied Obama was doing in your first statement. You have shown no evidence that this is what he believes, and of course he doesn’t.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Nick, what Obama said there is absolutely true. Those countries are small and less of a threat “compared to the Soviet Union”. They do not have an arsenal of nuclear missiles aimed at all of our major cities. They have tiny little armies that would be wiped out in a direct confrontation with our military. What Obama was pointing out is that this is not World War II and we are not facing military superpowers like we did in the past.
You see, Nick, we won the war in Iraq, but Bush and Cheney were too stupid to realize it. They weren’t satisfied with routing Hussein’s army and overthrowing his government. There is a big difference between winning a war, and invading and occupying a nation and trying to force all the people there to live the way you want them to. These are two entirely different things that Republicans today can’t seem to fathom.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:19 am
Ann:
No evidence, huh? I guess even his own words, spoken in public, aren’t good enough. Words mean things, and when Obama said, “You know, Iran, they spend 1/100th of what we spend on the military. I mean, if Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they would — they wouldn’t stand a chance”, to me it sounds like he is saying that because Iran spends 1/100th of what we do on their military, they are not a serious threat. But then again, the next day he said that Iran was a “grave” threat. I guess it all depends on which side of his mouth he is speaking from on a particular day.
Mike:
Tiny little armies are more thasn enough to bring a country like the US to its knees; do you recall September 11, 2001? 19 whack-jobs with box cutters brought the entire country to a standstill for days and dealt a huge blow to our economy. Are you serious when you say these guys are not a threat?
Here we go again with the “force the people to live the way we want them to” canard. What we gave the Iraqi people was freedom so that they could choose the way they wanted to live. We didn’t force anything on them; we freed them from tyrannical rule. Of, I can understand why a big government liberal would see a tyrant’s dictatorship as a viable option for these people, given that it would run their entire lives for them. It kinda sounds like what Obama wants to do if he gets elected here.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:07 am
Nick, there’s a predictable problem with relying on Michelle Malkin for “evidence”.
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
No more predictable than the problems of using a liberal blogger to “prove” that a conservative is wrong. It is all opinion, and everyone has one. You might agree with the liberal, but that alone doesn’t make the liberal right.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Luv the scare quotes around “prove.” No, Nick, it is not “all opinion” - there are, believe it or not, such things as “facts” and there is such a thing as taking someone’s words out of context to make them sound as if he/she is saying, or implying, something that he/she is not. If you want to debate some issue that Obama talks about, fine, but the least you could do is be honest about his positions and not resort to Malkin tactics - they’re cheap.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Nick,
Please go back and read what I actually said. I did not say that “these guys are not a threat”. I said they are less of a threat “compared to the Soviet Union”.
Got that? Just like Obama said, as Ann’s link makes quite clear.
Sure these little countries are still a threat, but it’s like the difference between stepping on a cactus (Ouch!) and stepping on a landmine (Boom!).
As for 9/11, the damage was more psychological than anything. The loss of life was horrific, of course, but it did not come close to defeating us as a nation. And one must understand that it was an abberation that will never be repeated. They couldn’t even pull it off completely as it was happening. Once the passengers of the Pennsylvania flight figured out what was going on they revolted and brought the airline down. There will never again be an unchallenged hijacking of an airliner on U.S. soil.
Finally, the dig at Obama trying to compare him the Saddam Hussein does not even merit a response because it is so ridiculous.
Since you think that because I oppose our occupation of Iraq, I must therefore want the people there to live under a dictatorship, then I can only assume that your failure to demand an immediate invasion of North Korea means you support having those people live under that dictatorship.
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Mike:
The difference between Iraq and North Korea is that North Korea, thanks to Mr. Clinton and Ms. Albright, now has nuclear weapons. Add to that the unstable nature of Kim Jong Il, and invasion isn’t such a good idea.
As for the September 11, 2001 attack being an “abberation that will never be repeated,” how can you be so sure? Maybe no one is going to hijack several planes using box cutters again, but there are many ways small groups of determined terrorists can attack this nation and cause just as much, or more, damage, destruction, and death. Just ask the people in Israel if they like riding the bus or going to a pizza parlor anymore. Ask them if they are comfortable going to any large gathering of people anymore. The answer is more than likely “No” because they know what it is to deal with terrorism on a day-to-day basis. They also have military guards and soldiers everywhere and the bombs continue to blow up and kill men, women, and children.
An “abberation that will never be repeated”? Behold, the September 10th mentality on display for all to see.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
“taking someone’s words out of context to make them sound as if he/she is saying, or implying, something that he/she is not”
We can be confident, then, that Ann has repudiated Barack Obama’s slanderous implication that John McCain wants to wage war in Iraq for “100 years”?
Press needs to call Obama on distortion of McCain’s statement
By the way, the source at that link is no partisan blogger, but the Columbia Journalism Review…
May 24th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
So, Nick, does that mean that an invasion and occupation is a good idea for any country with an oppresive form of government that doesn’t have nukes? Then why haven’t we invaded Mynamar yet? Or Libya? Oh, wait! Bush cut a deal with Gadaffi, so it’s OK for those people to live under his oppressive rule now.
And isn’t the message we are sending that if you don’t already have nukes you better get them quick?
Also, if you think North Korea has nukes because of Clinton, then you clearly aren’t up on your current history. Most of N. Korea’s advancement in that area came after Bush took office and began atagonizing the North Koreans as part of the “Axis of Evil”.
And I did not say that terrorism was an abberation that would not be repeated. I said the 9/11 hijack an airline and fly it into a building scheme was. As for the Sept. 10th mentality, I assume you mean what Bush had prior to 9/11 when he ignored the warnings of his terror experts like Richard Clarke and went on vacation rather than deal with such threats.
Democrats are not saying we should go back to ignoring such threats like Bush did, but neither can we allow them to totally rule our lives and dictate our foreign policy.
May 24th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
McCain fully deserves all the grief he is getting for his moronic statement about a 100 year war. He was asked how long he would support keeping our troops in Iraq and he snapped out his 100 year answer before offering the clarification that he only means if it is like our troops in Japan or Germany after WWII when they weren’t getting shot and killed everyday. But he never answered the real question, which was how long do we keep our troops there under the current violent conditions? He wouldn’t say, so all we were left with was his smartass 100 year response. And now it has come back to bite him in the ass.
May 24th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
The point, Mike, is that Obama pretended no clarification had been made by McCain when he knew better. Obama is a fraud, a hypocrite, the same old politico…not the Political Faith Healer his acolytes “believe in”.