The 2008 election is finally just around the corner. Next Tuesday those of us who haven't voted early will make our way to the polls and make our choice for President and many other offices. We have had more information in this campaign than we often have, and some real discussion of issues that matter--from taxes to Social Security, from health care to military spending. But we've also had one of the worst smear campaigns that I have ever seen--worse than the anti-Dukakis Willie Horton ads. John McCain, a man who claims for himself the term "maverick" (and thereby reveals that he is no maverick, since genuine mavericks do not seek out labels by which to endear themselves to fawning bases) and Barack Obama, a man few Americans knew before he stepped on the world stage in his 2004 Democratic convention speech, have both revealed themselves through the two years that this campaign has gone on. We Americans are ready to choose one of them to lead us over the next four years. I've made my choice, and it was not difficult. I heartily endorse Barack Obama for president, for the following reasons.
1) ECONOMICS AND TAXES: McCain admits his economic ignorance and surrounds himself with ideological economic voices, leading him to support a tax policy that continues the corporatist philosophy that has dominated the country under four decades of mostly Republican rule--tax laws that consistently favor big business and the powerful wealthy over ordinary Americans. Obama has some of the best economic minds in the country in his camp, and he supports a tax policy that is more attuned to the greater public good. Studies of the two policies have made it clear that McCain's would result in larger deficits while providing more tax cuts for the wealthy with incomes above $250,000, whereas Obama's would result in smaller deficits while providing more tax cuts for ordinary Americans with incomes of less than $100,000. See this New York Times analysis.
2) WAR: McCain seems almost to believe that war is good (witness his "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" song and dance routine) and shows no judgment about the subtleties of foreign policy diplomacy. We have already spent billions and likely commited trillions to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, yet McCain would continue to expend scarce resources on a wasteful war that has killed thousands of civilians, created a lasting impression of an imperialistic nation gone awry, and resulted in no gains for the US other than for the greedy, cronyism-based war-industry itself, from Blackwater to Halliburton. Obama understood from the beginning the dangers of invading Iraq under a trumped-up rationale, and he had the courage of true leadership to speak up about that at a time when many Americans were so fooled by the warmongering propaganda and lies about weapons of mass destruction that they believed war with Iraq was appropriate.
3) INCLUSIVENESS: McCain has run a hateful campaign of smears, that demonstrate his inability to work well to reach out to a broadly inclusive agenda that serves the public good, whereas Obama epitomizes the inclusiveness that must be the guidestar for this country in the twenty-first century. McCain's smear campaign suggests guilt by association (using Obama's casual association with has-beens like Bill Ayers and others, even though it turns out that he or his friends are associated with the same people that he tries to smear Obama with) and invites the kind of divisive hate that has for so long kept America from uniting to act in the public good and permitted the corporatist agenda easy dominance. Obama's campaign has provided informative contrasts to McCain's policies without resorting to smears--even though McCain's history could have invited those smears (the Keating Five scandal, his many affairs, his not-so-stellar record from poor showing in his class to being widely known as an angry man whose temper gets the best of him).
4) SCIENCE McCain is an anti-intellectual that snobbishly associates wisdom and articulateness with anti-Americanism, whose science advisors are limited, and whose running mate believes in creationism. Obama is an intellectual who can articulate the concerns of ordinary Americans while understanding the complexities of modern life and the importance of promoting scientific analysis and solutions for the problems we face. The range of science experts who advise Obama is impressive, and suggests that he will attempt to pick good people and ensure that science is at the forefront of scientific policy decisions, unlike the Bush administration that has let petty partisan politics kick science out of the laboratory.
5) JUDGMENT: McCain appears to be a rash, angry man whose judgment is clouded by petty issues and vengeful thinking. His selection of the inarticulate, poorly educated, inexperienced, unqualified, small-mined, and divisive Sarah Palin as running mate suggests that as president he would put momentary gain above the long-term wellbeing of the country, resulting in poor choices about people who will hold enormous power, including Supreme Court justices, Secretary of State, and other positions. Obama, on the other hand, has consistently shown a willingness to listen, to consider, to reflect, and his selections of people to work with him have shown how well that reflection works in ensuring that people understand the message, work together to achieve a good result, and take note of mistakes so that they are not repeated. His selection of Joe Biden as running mate suggests that as president he will consider the long-term wellbeing of the country: Biden isn't perfect, but he is deeply concerned about ordinary Americans (although rich, he is not in the super-wealthy class that generally populates the Senate) and he is qualified to take on the office of President if he must.
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