I’ve received a lot of email asking me to stop linking to those politicians I disagree with and to write more about the politicians with which I agree.
I linked to an endorsement by The New Yorker and quoted a couple of paragraphs. That pretty much is exactly how I feel.
Mr. Obama knows that he is a relative newcomer. His choice of Vice President proves that he wanted to balance the ticket with somebody who has strengths in areas where Senator Obama may be less strong. I’m not sure that Obama thought he’d get the nomination when he started his campaign. This election has been running for a couple of years now and the primary season on the Democratic side was brutal. Battles like that put on display how a candidate will respond when in office.
Following the conventions, the craziest stuff has been said about Obama. I’ve never seen so many different and intensely personal attacks in one cycle. How Obama has responded has been, for lack of a better term, presidential.
There are several memes coming from conservatives: Terrorist! Marxist! Socialist! Deficit Spender! These are all irresponsible and if you compare the kinds of things the Obama campaign has gotten wrong versus right on a site like factcheck.org, he has run a much cleaner, better organized campaign than his opponents. He hasn’t resorted to name-calling or personal attacks.
Is Obama or the party perfect? No. No candidate is ever perfect. There is no such thing. But I can look past the imperfections much more easily this cycle. I like that Obama taught constitutional law. Especially given the dangerous ground the Bush/Cheney administration has trod.
I’m not going to lie. My main reason for voting Obama/Biden is that I feel like they’ve got what it takes to put aside the name calling and childish part of politics and really move this country forward. My inner ideologist loves the fact that Obama speaks in a calm, educated way and dares to use words like “hope”. We could use some hope about now.