On the real issues

[metta 0]

Ok, The odds are against my candidate winning. So, I am mulling over the eventuality of choosing Obama vs McCain.

As my first principle for picking a candidate, I don't take campaign promises unless with a huge and heavy dose of skepticism. campaign promises are just that. Promises.

My main criteria is who will be the best person to deliver on the issues that are really very real to us ordinary folks. Economy, health care, safety from an accidental or intended(as in Bush's Iraq war and 9/11)catastrophes

As a democrat, I agree with most of the D party platform. It is easy to get a platform together. The candidate only needs to get the expert put the policies together and have them brief him/her on the talking points. The crucial question is , "can the person deliver?" What do I have to go by to at least convince myself that he/she can or will carry out the desired policy outcome? In the case of Hillary who i support, there is a track record of her passion for favorite issue . Healthcare. Yes, even if she failed to get it on the first try. She is familiar with every nook and cranny of the issue.Also, recall that she tried to pull together health care program in teh face of the rising tide of Newt- led revolution and the thundering roar of Rush's ditto-heads.

With Barack, I like his platform (after all, I am a democrat) but i really am having a problem, looking for a clue that will allay my doubts on whether he could deliver. His track record? His votes in the illinois legislature? Or in the U.S. Senate? Can anyone identify any one policy issue he worked on with a passion?

And the economy. Without an improvement in the economy, neither Hillary nor Barack can do much about the much touted universal healthcare.

Then, of course, the Iraq War and the looming Iranian (islamic) bomb. How will he deal with the changed geopolitical dynamics of the region should he pull out of Iraq as he promised? How will Barack navigate the treacherous foreign policy shoals without any experience except for a few years of growing up in Hawaii or a trip to Pakistan and some countries here and there? or will he deal with Russia and China ganging up on the US along with smaller tin horns such as Chavez and Kim Jong Il?

How about Pakistan and it's nuclear bomb not to speak ofspreading nuclear weapons technology?

All that I have, to measure Obama on these issues are his speeches and policy positions on his websites.

Well, as for McCain, if i decide to vote for him in the end, it will not be because of his Rep platform which as the past 8 years have proven to be an unmitigated disaster, but for his experience, his flexiblity (read maverick, not rigidly opposed to Dem issues) and believe that an inevitably Dem-dominated and veto-proof house and senate will be able to push him toward Dems' platform. After Bush eight years, I am becoming less of a believer in giving the control over both the exec branch and legislative branch to a single party .

The Cattle-Prod Election

Schumpeter didn't think that intellectuals understood politics any better than anyone else; instead, he thought they were simply more likely to mistake their own impulsive judgments for reasoned ones. The 'reduced sense of responsibility' and 'the absence of effective volition', he noted, 'are if anything more shocking in the case of educated people and of people who are successfully active in non-political walks of life than it is with uneducated people in humble stations. Information is plentiful and readily available. But this does not seem to make any difference.' Super-smart Obama-lovers who wish that everyone would see things the way they do exemplify this aspect of democratic politics, even as they kid themselves that they are trying to confront it. Though as a Hillary supporter, I would think that, wouldn't I?

link

Quite frankly, this is a portrait of a dilettante. Obama doesn't really have ideas of his own, not even an overarching governing philosophy as a prism through which policy could get made. He just wants to be President, and figures that he can charm his way to the White House.

Obama on policy: er, Hope! Change!

posted at 9:00 am on May 29, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

The Washington Post runs a front-page analysis of Barack Obama's policy positions today, and they find … nothing much. In fact, what little work Obama had done on policy since entering the Senate in 2005 he abandoned in 2006 as he prepared for his presidential campaign. To the extent that he has any policy credentials, Perry Bacon reports that it doesn't differ at all from the standard platform of the Democratic Party:

Already famous for his speech at the 2004

Democratic National Convention

,

Barack Obama

entered the Senate with more than the usual aspirations about the impact he could have.

So in 2005, he had his office arrange informal seminars so that experts on health care, the economy, energy and education could brief him. "I'm not running for president," he told a group of experts at his

Capitol Hill

office in the spring of 2006. But he said he had a "national voice" and wanted to use it.

When Obama changed his mind and decided to run for president after only two years in the Senate, however, he effectively dismissed the importance of policy proposals, declaring in one speech in early 2007, "We've had plenty of plans, Democrats," and in another: "Every four years, somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the Web." He cast his "new kind of politics" in terms of his ability to transcend divisions and his unique biography and offered few differences on issues from

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton

and the other Democratic presidential candidates. …

Obama has not emphasized any signature domestic issue, or signaled that he would take his party in a specific direction on policy, as

Bill Clinton

did with his "New Democrat" proposals in 1992 that emphasized welfare reform or as

George W. Bush

did with his "compassionate conservatism" in 2000, when he called on Republicans to focus more on issues such as education.

Obama's campaign is "clearly politically transformative, it's clearly from a policy standpoint been cautious," said James K. Galbraith, a liberal activist and economist at the

University of Texas at Austin

who had backed former

senator John Edwards

in the early primaries.

Translation: It's all about the biography. Obama claims to transcend partisanship, but that only accounts for style, not substance. What little substance he has established shows a trend farther to the Left of Bill Clinton.

In one sense, Obama's candidacy shows the triumph of style over substance. It seems like an age ago when politicians ran on broad philosophical approaches to governance or detailed policy proposals. Even Clinton ran on an economic agenda and a perception as a policy wonk, a man who knew government and had specific ideas to implement policies. In Obama's case, we get nothing more than platitudes about hope and change, even though as the WaPo reports, he hasn't brought any change at all to Washington, and shows a concerted lack of interest in the policy mechanism that would bring it.

Bacon notes that Obama largely goes along with the flow on policy — the Democratic Party flow. He doesn't have any new ideas but instead aspires to put his face on the same old progressive agenda of big-government solutions that the party appeared to reject during the Clinton era. The DLC faction has all but disappeared, and what remains is a McGovernesque, Mondalesque Democratic Party that wants to expand federal power through massive redistribution of wealth. Instead of leading the party on this agenda, though, Obama cheerfully acquiesces to it, in a certain sense selling his brand as a label.

Quite frankly, this is a portrait of a dilettante. Obama doesn't really have ideas of his own, not even an overarching governing philosophy as a prism through which policy could get made. He just wants to be President, and figures that he can charm his way to the White House.

Edited May 29, 2008 by metta

[Alhamdulillah 0]

Ok, The odds are against my candidate winning. So, I am mulling over the eventuality of choosing Obama vs McCain.

Out of curiosity, who is your candidate?

Why do Americans tend to think they can only vote for someone who's likely to win? I'd rather be the only one to vote for the person I think is better suited for the job than one of the millions who voted for someone we all consider unethical and incompetent.

I recently learned that we can actually write in a candidate if we don't find ours on the ballot and that's what I plan to do if Ron Paul doesn't make it on.

[metta 0]

Ok, The odds are against my candidate winning. So, I am mulling over the eventuality of choosing Obama vs McCain.

Out of curiosity, who is your candidate?

Why do Americans tend to think they can only vote for someone who's likely to win? I'd rather be the only one to vote for the person I think is better suited for the job than one of the millions who voted for someone we all consider unethical and incompetent.

I recently learned that we can actually write in a candidate if we don't find ours on the ballot and that's what I plan to do if Ron Paul doesn't make it on.

Out of curiosity, who is your candidate?

HRC

[Marilyn. 340]

Ok, The odds are against my candidate winning. So, I am mulling over the eventuality of choosing Obama vs McCain.

Out of curiosity, who is your candidate?

Why do Americans tend to think they can only vote for someone who's likely to win? I'd rather be the only one to vote for the person I think is better suited for the job than one of the millions who voted for someone we all consider unethical and incompetent.

I recently learned that we can actually write in a candidate if we don't find ours on the ballot and that's what I plan to do if Ron Paul doesn't make it on.

Out of curiosity, who is your candidate?

HRC

umm she said ...