Making my political decision

[drwex]

I don't usually 'do' politics here. Mostly there's a clear choice and I've made up my mind - I can't recall ever being this undecided this late in the primary season. Events of the past week have made up my mind, though.

Come February I'll be voting for Obama.
I find all of the Democratic candidates preferable to any of the Republican. On the Repub side only McCain strikes me as even vaguely tolerable. I may disagree with him, but he speaks straight truth as far as he can. Watching him in Michigan telling unpleasant truths to auto workers whom he had to know would just go out and vote for Romney's lies was painful. I don't see any third-party candidates worth my attention.

Of the Dems, there are a couple of back-of-the-pack names I think have good positions on many issues, mostly Dodd and Kucinich. But neither is going to be nominated. That leaves Clinton, Obama, and Edwards.

Edwards doesn't make the cut because I find him too strident and angry. Not that he doesn't have a right to this, but I don't think more anger is going to help us at this point. The next US President is going to have to do SO much work to rebuild our national and international integrity. I think either Obama or Clinton could do this and both have put positive and hopeful themes into their campaigns.

EDIT: cos linked to this blog entry about Obama's attempt to bring a conflict-resolution mentality to the race. This kind of thing, if it wins, could be tremendously powerful in an American president.

I like Mrs. Clinton as a person. I think she did about as well as she could have during the Lewinsky mess. I think she's done a decent job in the Senate (though she was dead wrong on the war and needs to come clean on that). I also like Obama. I agree he's less experienced than ideal and I wish he was more willing to address black issues up front. I think he should have been the one to put racial issues (such as income inequity, profiling, etc) on the table and address them. The fact that he's now on the defensive on these issues annoys me.

The deciding factor for me is how the Clinton campaign is running things, and the attacks on Obama. I believe Mrs. Clinton is executing a carefully planned strategy; she's scripted from the get-go. And we've just had 8 years of experience with a President who surrounds himself with vile, evil handlers and managers who script attacks on opponents. I don't like how Mrs. Clinton is focus-grouping her campaign rather than leading it. Obama may stumble, but at least he stumbles because he's trying to lead, rather than using a protective coccoon of attack dogs and scriptwriters. Mr. Clinton should be ashamed of his performance these past few weeks - he's played a major part in losing my vote.

Commentary welcome, as always.

Comments

[taura-g.livejournal.com]

I especially agree with your last paragraph... I was leaning very strongly towards Clinton prior to the last couple of weeks. And I really do think that Mr. Clinton needs to back off and chill out, his behavior has been less than respectable.

I'm still not real sure about Obama though. I do like him but something in the back of my head keeps waving red flags and I'm not sure why. I really need to pin down exactly what it is that bothers me before I make a final decision.

[fairion.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying this. I didn't want to be the only one feeling this way. I am usually so rational and clear cut in my political opinions that not having a really good reason but being very wary of him none the less irks me.

[drwex]

He's not going to appeal to everyone, and I certainly recognize the appeal of "elect a woman when we have the chance."

My worry is that people will be "concerned" because he's black and thus Not Like Us, which is always scary. (Note this is not an accusation at you two or anyone else in particular, just something I worry about.)

[cos]

We will have another chance. We've got a number of women in the Senate and a number of women governors now.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

If you take it as a given that both Hillary and Bill Clinton are very intelligent, we have to take a look at the result of the South Carolina primary:

Edwards is out. It was his freakin' back-yard, and he couldn't get his voice above the Clinton-Obama bickering. Bill Clinton attacking the Obama camp successfully made everyone ignore Edwards.

All that said, I am also supporting Obama. For me, there is no candidate who sufficiently reflects my principles, and that includes the guy I actively supported back in 1988. So, with principles off the table, that leaves raw pragmatics.

I want a weak president. I mean that only in the structural sense. I want legislation to start in the legislature, not in the White House. I want policy to be driven from the legislature. I want the executive branch to execute, negotiate with foreign powers, etc. And from that perspective, nobody from the GOP will play that way, and the Democrats in the House and Senate will take marching orders from the Clinton camp. For checks and balances, they would not do this for an Obama administration, but the office of the president could keep any runaway legislative crap in check. The way it's supposed to be.

[drwex]

Interesting analysis. I tend to agree, though I'd also like to see a President set policy that the Legislature can embody in legislation (or not). I do find the whole notion of the Imperial Presidency repulsive.

I'd sort of expected you to be backing Ron Paul, though.

[okelle.livejournal.com]

Well said. That's what I find most distressing about the Bush Jr administration: "We are above the law!"

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

I'd like to back Ron Paul, but he has gone off the deep end on the whole fetal rights notion, and he can't bring himself to say a bad word about Creationism (and he's a licensed medical practitioner!). He has been deliberately courting the religious wing-nuts, and even making noises about "protecting our borders" on the immigration question. No, he's slid into the nastier parts of conservatism in his later years.

Which is really too bad, as he's the only candidate who seems to understand how economics works. When the other GOP candidates were talking about strong-arming OPEC, he was the one who pointed out that most of the price increase at the pumps can be attributed to the declining dollar, and the rest to the war in Iraq.

[cos]

You may be interested in this survey by the Boston Globe, of the candidates' views on executive power. (Clinton and Obama had very similar answers, though Obama was a little better and also went further by including a long list of things he thinks Bush has done that are outside his authority to do).

[okelle.livejournal.com]

It's impossible for me to extricate my personal feelings about Obama vs Clinton from a more objective stance on the issues.

I don't think that the fact that Clinton is running a more polished campaign makes her an un-good (yes, that is a word because I say so, and so does Big Brother) candidate. I find that Obama has a lot of flash and glamour but not a lot of substance. I don't trust him. I don't particularly trust Hilary either, but I do know a lot more about her track record than I do Obama's.

And frankly, I just want to see a woman in the White House. It's a completely unreasonable and emotional argument, I know, but slaves got their freedom 40 years before women got the vote. And I'd like to see the woman get there first. I'd have voted for Barbara Jordan before I'd have voted for Jesse Jackson, too.

::ducks for flames::

[drwex]

I think Obama's campaign is fairly polished, just not as vicious as Clinton's.

(And yes, I'd've voted for Barbara Jordan over either of these two in a heartbeat.)

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

It's a completely unreasonable and emotional argument, I know, but slaves got their freedom 40 years before women got the vote.

It's also a vast oversimplification. Yes, black men were granted the right to vote before any women--but it took another hundred years for most black men, and another 40 for most black women to be able to exercise that right.

[okelle.livejournal.com]

True. And it's also ridiculous to think that it's an either/or proposition: it's not as though there's not enough power and opportunity to go around for black men, black women, white women, queers, immigrants, etc etc.

I'm still not sold on Obama, though.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

Hell, I'm not either. Now that Kucinich is officially out, I'm back to undecided--though I'm seriously considering writing Gore in.

[okelle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Kucinich seems like the only candidate worth voting for. Unfortunately, most people don't even know who he is!

BTW, I friended you.

[okelle.livejournal.com]

Oh, by the way. A similar thread is happening over here:
http://mofic.livejournal.com/76630.html

[stevie-stever.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of your analysis here. I'll put almost any Democrat in the field into the white house if only because they're the only ones we can count on to keep the USSC from going over the deep end. As is, I'm not totally convinced that Stevens will last until the end of this administration, while three of the last four most recently appointed judges by Republican presidents have all proven to be 'company men'.

Obama currently has the momentum and the charisma, if not the experience.

[gamehawk.livejournal.com]

I'm tending to agree, though I have to admit Hillary was out of the running from the get-go for me. Had quite enough of dynastic presidencies, thankyouverymuch. I mean, I guess it worked out well for the presidents Adams, but since then, not so much.

I'm also always worried when either party holds both houses of Congress and the Presidency, but this time around that can't seem to make me want any of the Republicans winning. (That is a bad, bad sign.)

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

My favorite candidate is Kucinich, so of course HE'S not going to win.

I really, really want a Democrat to win. McCain is the best of the Republicans because he at least has principles, but they aren't principles that I agree with. The rest of the Republican pack is disasterous.

So I don't want to vote for the Democratic candidate that I think is the smartest or the nicest or has the best policies -- I want to vote for the one that I think has a chance of beating the Republicans.

The Republicans fight dirty. We saw that in the Swift Boat Veterans thing, we saw that when Bush accused McCain of having a child out of wedlock, we see that every time there's an election. They will lie -- knowingly, intentionally, cynically -- for political advantage. They will cheat. They will try to keep our voters away from the polls. They will fight as dirty as they can, and they can fight pretty damned dirty.

So I want a candidate who can handle this. I want somebody who expects a dirty campaign, who knows what to do when people lie about them, who's ready to call people on their cheating and ready to go to court about keeping our voters out.

Hillary has been though eight years of the Republicans attacking her husband by any means necessary. She has learned how to fight dirty, herself, and has found advisors who understand dirty politics.

Did I just say that I plan to vote for Hillary BECAUSE she fights dirty? Yes. Yes, I did. The Republicans WILL fight dirty, and we have to be able to take it and dish it back harder. I wish it weren't so. I really, really wish it weren't so. But keeping the Republicans out of the White House is #1 for me.

[drwex]

Copying the enemy's methods has historically not worked, but perhaps this time will be different. I tend to doubt it because when Hilary does what Rove did she gets perceived differently. He's "shrewd"; she's "shrewish". He's "clever"; she's "bitchy." I think it's a prescription for disaster, not to mention a sad commentary on our political status.

[cos]

Electability is a very very difficult thing to judge. You can tell when someone *can't* be elected president when it's really obvious (Kucinich, Ron Paul) but trying to judge among the ones who can is very tricky when we haven't seen the campaigns unfold yet, and we don't know how people who think completely differently than us will react to them (by definition, if you're voting in the primary with electability as a top concern, then your view of the general election is highly partisan and therefore extremely different from the views of the people upon whom "electability" rests). Intuition is usually wrong.

Close following of many elections, including working on message development, seeing vote goals and how they compare with actual votes, looking deep into polling data (not the mostly useless "who would you vote for if the election were today" stuff that gets media attention in high-profile elections), and similar pursuits, over time, can help you make better guesses. But overall, if you care about electability, you're best off voting for the candidate that inspires you more or that you can personally make a stronger case for, because that's what it'll come down to later: people are going to have to be persuaded to vote (and to vote for your candidate). When partisans vote for a candidate they don't really like as much because they think that candidate will better appeal to others, they end up with a nominee they can't make an enthusiastic case for. That's what happened in 2004 with John Kerry.

Based on my experience, I actually think Obama (and Edwards) both have a much stronger chance against McCain than Hillary does, though they don't necessarily against other Republican candidates. I also think any of Hillary, Obama, and Edwards would have a pretty good chance against any of the Republicans.

[kalimar.livejournal.com]

I had a hard time deciding between Clinton and Obama. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. In the end, it came down to this for me: Would I rather have someone who has been around (and perhaps poisoned by) politics for a long time, or would I rather have someone who is casting a (relatively) new face on politics?

Mrs Clinton, for all that I wish her well, has been around politics for so long that I have doubts about whether she can or is willing to change anything about the way things are run.

Mr Obama, on the other hand, is a relative newcomer (thus all the shots at his "lack of experience"). I think that is what we need. Someone who might do things differently.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think anything will change. Congress is too used to the way things are to change them, but I think Mr Obama offers far more hope than Mrs Clinton.

Side Note:
In fact, I applaud all the "lifers" in politics. It probably takes quite a lot of effort to survive all the temptations that come with being a Senator, Representative, etc. We've seen quite a few cases of people not resisting the temptations of power in the past.

However, I think there should be term-limits on congress-critters. We need to have turn-over. Otherwise, it's the same people doing the same thing over and over and over again. With turn-over, you might have a chance to get people with more "modern" attitudes in place.

term limits

[cos]

I strongly oppose term limits for legislators. We get much higher quality legislation when good people with experience get to learn the ropes, experience the results of bills, and learn how to find those interesting threads in budget bills that let them untangle threads nobody but a legislator would find. I don't want to kick someone out simple because s/he's doing a great job and is loved by constituents.

I do want systems that reduce the advantages of incumbents, and give challenges a big leg up. Based on what we've seen in the states that have public financing, that is likely the biggest step we can take now, but there are other things we can do. Most importantly, I think having a higher percentage of people actively involved in politics (volunteering on campaigns, organizing local issue groups, etc.) would make it much easier to challenge incumbent legislators. We should also have instant runoff voting, better facilitation of candidate-voter communication (subsidized by the government), completely nonpartisan noncommercial candidate forums, etc.

[hlmt.livejournal.com]

I read the New York Times endorsement of Hillary Clinton, and agreed with much of what they said (for as naive as I am about politics, I understood most of it). I am, however, still surprisingly undecided. Normally my pragmatic Swissness would say, Yes, by all means, let's vote for someone who can get the job done, who has all the tools, who has experience, etc. It's just more reasonable.

But there's this niggling feeling in me that this may not be what this country needs at this time. I think that the elan of a charismatic personality (which was the major point brought up by Caroline Kennedy in her letter) is something that America may seriously need to not lose its verve and its very Americanness (that charming, bumbling, naively sincere effervescence the rest of the world both mocks and envies).

So, I don't know. My Americanness may overtake my Swissness.

=)

[cos]

Kucinich and Dodd both dropped out; Dodd right after Iowa when he got less than 1%, and Kucinich last week. Richardson also dropped out (he was another one I liked).

Your last paragraph makes me think of this video, by the former president of Chicago's chapter of NOW, about why she switched from supporting Hillary to supporting Obama:

[drwex]

Amen.