I've been going back and forth for weeks - Obama or Clinton. The truth is I could live either of them being President. Let's face it, Claude could do a better job than the moron we've got now. (For those of you who don't know, Claude is my cat. Or I should say, my cat is clawed.)
An important question is who is the most electable, who has the best chance in the general election?
Looking at the last several elections, going all the way back to Mondale vs. Reagan, I can't remember one Democratic candidate who had the charisma and savvy to respond strongly and articulately to the right-wing attack machine, except Bill Clinton. (Not coincidentally, he was the only one to win.) Every four years, save for '92 and '96, my heart would break watching that year's Democratic sacrificial lamb walk on eggs to avoid getting the Republicans mad at him. I remember Mondale assuring us in a debate with Reagan that he did indeed "respect the President." I remember Dukakis defending himself against "accusations" that he was a liberal. (I will never forgive him for allowing that to become a dirty word in America.) I remember cringing when I first heard Kerry's new campaign slogan - "'W' is for 'wrong'". Lame. Lame. LAME.
So watching Edwards up there, repeating the same two or three talking points over and over, I knew he wouldn't make it. He may have been qualified to BE president, but he was not qualified to RUN for President. Not that I question the validity or sincerity of his platform. I just cannot stomach another electoral season of yelling at the TV the things the candidate ought to be saying while he sits there like a deer in headlights repeating the same uninspiring line.
Hillary is an improvement over Edwards in terms of her ability to rally an audience, but let's face it. She is not in Barack's league. He is the most inspiring and articulate politician we've had since Bill. And Bill and Hillary know it. That's why they've had Bill on the campaign trail doing what Hillary can't - stirring people up. (After 7 years of pre-fab speeches delivered by a brain-dead frat boy, I have to admit I've enjoyed watching Bill and Barack spar remotely. They're both so good at it.)
There is also Hillary's vote to let Bush go to war in Iraq. I remember how she stood up and gave a speech passionately supporting her position, as Congress abdicated it's constitutionally mandated responsibility to declare war, handing it over to the President. I might have to forgive her and vote for her if there was not another candidate in the race who did NOT support the war, but that is not the case.
I was very impressed when I came across this video of Obama back in 2002 predicting all the issues we would face if we went to war in Iraq. (Did I mention he majored in International Relations at Columbia?) This is exactly the kind of insight we need in a leader if we are going to repair our standing in the world:
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[Hey, this is cool. I just discovered I can embed video in my blog. Okay, inner tech geek receding as inner political geek returns.]
Watching the debates, I was impressed with Hillary's command of the issues. She was very substantive. But Barack was even more substantive. I have to confess, before I watched the debates, I was falling for the media myth that Obama was inexperienced and had no concrete ideas. On the contrary, he has mastered the issues, and I found him enormously substantive and articulate. For the first time since early Bill Clinton, I found myself nodding in agreement while listening to the positions of a serious presidential contender.
In terms of their intellectual grasp of the issues, Barack and Hillary are both fully in command. Her demeanor, however, seems stiff and often insincere. On Hillary's official Myspace page, there is a link to videos of people who "know" Hillary. The unfortunate implication is that we cannot really know her, except possibly through a third party. Barack, on the other hand, is simply a natural orator.
There is not much difference between Hilary and Barack in terms of their general philosophy. Where they differ is in how far they are willing to go. For example, early in the campaign an issue came up about handling the predicted social security deficit. While Hillary refused to consider the possibility of raising any taxes at all, Obama was not afraid to discuss the possibility of raising the social security tax threshold. Currently, it is $80,000. That means that someone making a million dollars a year pays exactly the same dollar amount of social security tax as someone making $80,000. Payroll taxes such as social security are where the true inequities of our tax system lie. Wealthy people who don't work for a living don't pay payroll taxes on their income, making these taxes regressive. I don't doubt Hilary's words of concern for working people; but her fear of being labeled a "tax loving liberal" by the conservatives has paralyzed her, keeping her from saying what is clearly right. Obama feels no such stigma.
When Hillary made the remark a few weeks ago about President Johnson getting the Voting Rights Act passed, she was accused of playing the race card. I felt then that this was not a fair assessment. After watching the video, I still feel that way. I've embedded it below. [Cool!]
Note that Clinton did not bring up this issue on her own. Nor do I believe she was attempting to inject the race issue into the campaign. A reporter asked her to comment on a remark that Obama had made wherein he discussed King's ability to inspire and lead despite politicians who said he should hold back.
Hillary is a policy wonk, like Bill. They believe that being able to implement policy and legislation is how politicians get things done. Clinton was merely pointing out that it took a savvy and experienced politician to strong-arm a reluctant Congress into passing the Voting Rights Act. Of course Johnson would not and could not have acted without the enormous impetus that King and the civil rights movement created. No sane person could suggest otherwise. However, it is clear from the video that she was not implying, as a NY Times editorial egregiously suggested, "that a black man needed the help of a white man to effect change".
So I was ready to give Hillary the benefit of the doubt, feeling that she had been unfairly portrayed as racist. But then things got nasty. The Clintons tried to make the case that Obama's record on the war was identical to Clinton's. They brought up his alleged drug use as a youth. They made an issue of the fact that Obama pointed out that Reagan changed the direction of the country in 1980, while Nixon and Clinton didn't. (Obama's comment on this in his South Carolina victory speech was brilliant as he obliquely referred to "the kind of partisanship that says you're not even allowed to say that a Republican ever had an idea, even if it's one you never agreed with.")
Barack's point which Hillary was responding to is well taken. President Clinton did some good things while in office, but his changes were incremental. (To some degree this goes back to he and Hillary's "wonkish" perspective, the idea that politicians take small steps to make people's lives better, rather than leading great movements. It's also obvious with the outcome of the 1994 Congressional election, he was afraid of pushing a more transformational agenda.) Whether he could have done more or not, Obama is correct that Clinton's successes, while good for the country, were hardly transformational.
The Clinton attacks are having the opposite effect of that intended. They allow Obama to appear to rise above the fray as he eschews responding in kind (at least directly) while demonstrating his ability to fend off the kind of nasty attacks that he would no doubt face from the Republican nominee in a general election.
I believe I'll be voting for Obama in the primary. I don't want to get too fired up too soon. I'm still feeling pretty cynical. I'll have to ask Claude who he thinks will win.