On Why I’m Going to Vote for Obama

It has taken me some time, but I’ve finally decided that I’m going to vote for Obama for president in 2008. I was more excited about this year’s choices than any that I’ve had before in the years that I have been a voting citizen of the United States. The choices we had last time between a rich plutocrat from the Northeast and a rich plutocrat whose family has pretended to be from Texas so that they could capture that good state’s considerable electoral college votes was an appalling example of the fact that we do indeed have an aristocracy in the United States. So this time we get to vote between Obama and McCain. On the one hand, we have a bright young politician who has tried to buck the system by challenging both parties to step out of the partisan bickering of the past that has led us into a place where the liberals hate the stupid, hick, unevolved conservatives and the conservatives hate the insidious, leftist, elitist liberals. On the other hand we have John McCain who has fairly consistently defied his own party, too and made a creditable attempt to reform the American political system. I’d actually be quite proud to have either man as my president.

But I’m going to vote for Obama. Why would a fairly conservative, Christian southerner decide to vote for a liberal northern democrat? I’ll tell you why:
1) Sarah Palin: When Palin was first nominated and I knew very little about her, I thought that it might have been a brilliant choice for John McCain. As time has progressed and I’ve learned more about her, I’ve grown less comfortable with her as the person who is one heart beat away from the presidency. The more I find out about her – the more I hear and read the text of her speeches – the more I think that she is basically George W. Bush with ovaries. She’s amiable, folksy (who knows if it is a put-on or not), and not very well-informed or articulate. If McCain is a different kind of Republican, Palin is not. If president McCain were to pass away in office, we would then be stuck for the remaining term with a person I would not be comfortable with having her finger on the big red button. Armageddon 2011, you betcha!

2) Hate filled insider email and mail. I’m on a lot of email lists including the email list of the Republican and Democratic parties. As the campaign wound up, I began to get solicitations for support from both parties. The Republican emails were consistently more riddled with errors and improper innuendo than that of the Democratic party. I’m particularly sensitive to the power of propaganda and manipulation and feel like the McCain campaign (and affiliated groups who are supporting his ticket) has been smearing Obama in ways that are unfair. They insinuate the “fact” that he is a closet Muslim, they misuse quotations from people in the Democratic party, and more. I thought that the conservative Republican southern hatred for Clinton might have been an aberration based upon that president’s questionable ethical decisions, but I’ve come to see that the Republican Party, as it is currently manifesting itself, has decided to demonize all Democrats at all costs – no matter what the truth is.

3) I am angry at the Republicans and think they need to be taken out behind the shed and given a good whipping. When I turned 18, I was a young Republican. I even campaigned for Ronald Reagan. I still believe that some of the ideas of the party at that time are things that need to be considered: What do we do about abortion? What should we do about people who abuse the welfare system? What should we do about a government of elites who don’t respond to the will of the people? What do we do about corruption? I was all for less governmental interference with ANYONE’S religious practices. I was all for promoting individual thrift and responsibility. I really bought the idea that if the Democratic elites could be forced out of power that a new era of responsibility and righteousness would be ushered in. I now see that this was wrong. But what was wrong with it? What was wrong is that when the Republicans got into power both in the presidency and in the congress, they reveled in their power. They punished the other side. They lost no time in setting up their own pork-barrel projects and rigging the game so that the wealthy gained increasing power. What they did NOT do was to look out for the hard working regular person. They decreased social programs, art based programs, and programs for the poor and they increased their corporate subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy. They also took away protections on the environment, protections against banking abuse and fraud, and protections from people in power. What are we left with after our years of Republican domination: A ruined economy, a bad world reputation, and the feeling that every single one of their promises was a lie. One of the major points of the McCain campaign is the question: “Can you trust Obama?” I’m not certain if I can. I have great hopes that he really is a different sort of leader. His first response to Jeremiah Wright was well-thought-out and not as politically expedient as I was thinking it was going to be. He may just be a man of his word. I don’t know that conclusively, but I don’t really know that conclusively about anyone. I know for a fact that I don’t trust the Republican party to be what they claim to be: a bastion of righteousness and good faith. I know for a fact that the Bush administration (which was allegedly “Christian”) has done a great number of dishonest and ungodly things in the name of security and patriotism and has set back the cause of Christianity as much as the murder of Muslims in Bosnia, the German Christian Church’s complicity in the Holocaust, or the abuses of the Crusades ever did. The Republican party may have a chance to recover its connection with Christianity, but at this point, it needs to retreat in sackcloth and ashes and examine itself. I hope that the Democratic party will do the same.

4) Race baiting and prejudice. I’m going to vote for Barack Obama because every time I get into a discussion with a person who opposes Obama vehemently, I, as a person who has been long steeped in the discourse of the South, can hear an implicit ending to every point that challenges my sanity if I were to cast a vote for a black man. No one I know will say, “I just don’t trust Obama, because he is a black man.” But behind almost every protestation, I hear people saying that. “I don’t trust Obama….” Well maybe you don’t, but I do. I’d rather have a smart person of any color in the Oval office than one who is as sly, proud arrogant and stupid as our current president.

5) I like FDR. I think that we face a financial crisis in this nation that is very close to that of the Great Depression. I think that we as a nation need to come together, to put away our credit cards, to start working hard again, to quit whining and make this thing work. We need a new Civilian Conservation Corps. We need solar energy subsidies for local households. We need to seriously look at the brokenness of our health care system and attempt to find ways to fix it. We need to prosecute and imprison the people who abused the financial freedoms we have and caused this crisis of fallen greed. We cannot do with the status quo and despite his "maverick" status, McCain seems to be mainly focusing on ways to keep it the same.

Either of these candidates will be better than our current president, so may the best one win. I’ll be praying that God’s good grace will flow through the decision that we all make collectively in November, whatever the outcome.