Barak Obama: Just WHY do you support him?

[Starglider]

McCain? Shit, he's arguably more corrupt than the Clintons and his 'maverick' image is just that: an image. Fuck him and the cayuse he rode in on.
HRC? The last time I looked up 'corrupt opportunist' in Webster's, it was her picture I saw.

Aww, not even a mention of Huckabee?

Because there'd be a sane market rate

Markets are not sane, not for any definition of 'sane' that related to the general health of the economy rather than individual greed. In fact with the current climate of fear virtually shutting down inter-bank lending for no good reason (ulimately because of unavoidable market opacity which would be even worse without the limited government regulation we have) should make this blatantly obvious. Unregulated interest rates would make things like the recent credit bubble even worse.

I'd rather we eliminate that tax completely and make up for the shortfall by reforming corporate tax law to eliminate loopholes.

Eliminating corporation tax 'loopholes', if that's even possible, will result in more money leaving the US economy as more firms move their headquarters abroad and it will lead to further inflation of executive salaries.

That said, it occurs to me that while Huckabee's idiotic idea of replacing progressive income tax with a flat sales tax has been properly ridiculed, I don't recall seeing anyone propose a progressive sales tax (i.e. at a percentage proportional to the price of the item being sold). Has anyone seriously proposed this? Is there any analysis of the results available?

While he does seem better then the other candidates, once he gets into office it is vital that he doesn't get a free pass.

Extremely unlikely. All the extremist Republicans (fundies, die-hard neocons) loathe him. They'll be a constant stream of trying to pick holes in everything he does. They'll also be trying even harder to manufacture scandals, and for the true nutjobs assassinate him. Even with the Democrats, the hard-core Clinton supporters will probably agitate against him. Any 'free pass' is unlikely to extend beyond a brief honeymoon period, and not even that in outlets such as Fox News.

[Uraniun235]

You know, I look at him and I hear about what he says and I listen to some of his speeches, and I want to believe. But I feel like I'm being a total sucker if I allow myself to be gung-ho about someone who is ultimately enough of a politician to be a credible candidate for the presidency.

So, when other people ask me about the Democrat candidates, my stated reasons for preferring Obama over Hillary tend to revolve around electability. Obama does not have over a decade of history with the Republicans; they have hated her for a long time and they have dreamed about campaigning against her for a long time. Yes, the Republicans surely have a strategy for Obama. But it's not as personal with Obama as it would be with Hillary.

I also don't think that Hillary would be able to get nearly as much cooperation from Congress as Obama would. Yes, Hillary is more of a party elite, which you might think would translate into strings she can pull. But the Republicans in Congress will be more galvanized against her, and (despite the Republican performance of George W. Bush's presidency) being President is absolutely no guarantee of having the rest of the party in lock-step behind you. One of my professors noted (although since I haven't looked myself I can't be sure) that with Hillary (and McCain) the campaign message is "I will do this", whereas with Obama the message is "We will do this".

Finally, in the long-term, I think Obama is the best candidate the Democrats have produced in a long time, perhaps even better than Bill Clinton; I've heard (again, haven't verified, please correct me) that Obama is turning out a lot of people who have not been politically active before, that he is drumming up a lot of enthusiasm. The Democratic party needs this. If the Democrats nominate a candidate who will generate enthusiastic activists and supporters, that alone will be a big advantage in the general election, but it could also swell the party ranks and possibly give the Democrats a much-needed edge.

I really hate to be thinking in terms of gunning for party supremacy, but the United States desperately needs the closest thing to liberal government it can get and it desperately needs as hard a push to the left as we can get, and unfortunately the only chance we have of that lies with the Democratic party.


Also, on an admittedly more petty note, Hillary Clinton's campaign stinks of an arrogant attitude of entitlement to me, as if she believes that just because she's paid her dues and carried the torch, she should get to be the presidential candidate. This leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. But I think that my other reasons are sound enough that I can safely indulge in this particular prejudice.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Sure, he's anti gun.
However, there are other issues where I agree with him (health care, Iraq, etc), and I rank them above guns.

Forget about it!

MILWAUKEE (AP) - Barack Obama said Friday that the country must do "whatever it takes" to eradicate gun violence following a campus shooting in his home state, but he believes in an individual's right to bear arms.

Obama said he spoke to Northern Illinois University's president Friday morning by phone and offered whatever help his Senate office could provide in the investigation and improving campus security. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke about the Illinois shooting to reporters while campaigning in neighboring Wisconsin.

The senator, a former constitutional law instructor, said some scholars argue the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees gun ownerships only to militias, but he believes it grants individual gun rights.

"I think there is an individual right to bear arms, but it's subject to commonsense regulation" like background checks, he said during a news conference.

He said he would support federal legislation based on a California law that would facilitate immediate tracing of bullets used in a crime. He said even though the California law was passed over the strong objection of the National Rifle Association, he thinks it's the type of law that gun owners and crime victims can get behind.

Five people, including the shooter, were killed during Thursday's ambush inside a lecture hall. Authorities said the two guns used were purchased legally less then a week ago.

"Today we offer them our thoughts and prayers, but we also have to offer them our determination to do whatever it takes to eradicate this violence from our streets, from our schools, from our neighborhoods and our cities," Obama said. "That is our duty as Americans."

Although Obama supports gun control, while campaigning in gun-friendly Idaho earlier this month, he said he does not intend to take away people's guns.

At his news conference, he voiced support for the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, which is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court next month.

"The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can't initiate gun safety laws to deal with gang bangers and random shootings on the street isn't born out by our Constitution," Obama said.

Obama also:

—Said Clinton now is attacking him for watering down a bill to regulate the nuclear industry that she also voted for and touted on her Web site. He suggested her attack was made out of desperation because his campaign is ahead.

"I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal," he said. "But I think this kind of gamesmanship is not what the American people are looking for."

—Seemed to hedge on his statement last year that he would accept public funds if his Republican opponent did as well. Likely GOP nominee John McCain has said he would adhere to such an agreement, but Obama was not willing to make such a firm commitment.

"If I am the nominee, then I will make sure that our people talk to John McCain's people to find out if we're willing to abide by the same rules and regulations with respect to the general election going forward," Obama said. "But it would be presumptuous of me to say now that I'm locking myself into something when I don't even know if the other side is going to agree to it and I'm not the nominee yet."

—Blamed problems with the economy on a "failure of leadership in Washington" that includes decisions by the Bush administration on taxes and the Clinton administration on trade. He criticized "politicians (who) tout NAFTA as a success when they're in the White House and then call it a mistake when they're on the campaign trail."

—Said he has not considered whether he would give up his Senate seat if he wins the presidential nomination.

___

On the Net:

http://www.barackobama.com


Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Alright gunbunnies, you know what to do. VOTE FOR OBAMA!

[Glocksman]

Despite his support for DC's outright ban on handguns, I still plan on voting for him in May and (hopefully) in November.

BTW, while no one can predict SCOTUS rulings with certainty, the odds are that Heller will overturn the DC ban as unconstitutional.

[Darth Wong]

I'm not an American, but if I were, I would support Obama for one reason: of all the viable candidates at this point, he exhibits the least amount of douchebaggery. I don't necessarily have to agree with someone about everything, but I'd rather not vote for a douchebag.

[Strider]

Gravel was my favorite snowball in hell too. It's a particularly apt analogy with him being from Alaska and all.

I would be pretty much fully behind Obama, but I've heard that he wants to cut NASA money, and that's basically money out of my pocket as an Astrophysicist looking for a job, so I don't know what to think.

[Darth Raptor]

As it is, NASA is fucking worthless. If it were actually achieving progress toward objectives of any relevance, then I'd give a fuck. But this "Dur, hur, let's go to the station and back!" shit deserves to get axed. In the face.

[TimothyC]

The one main thing keeping me from voting for him is that I haven't found a strait answer about ABM from him. That's the one position that I have to have to vote for the guy.

[mingo]

I support Obama because of two things he is not: Republican or Hillary Clinton.

[Teebs]

I'm not American but the thing that stands out in my mind about Obama is his apparent willingness to stand up for sensible points rather than pandering to anyone who might give him money/support. His talk on homophobia in the baptist church and his refusal to wear the US flag lapel pin spring to mind.

[Mr. T]

As far as I can tell, he's the most pro-nuclear power of any candidate.

[Mr Bean]

That's the damnedest thing about Obama.
When he speaks, I want to listen, and I want to believe. It's been a good long time since a politico inspired actual hope in my cynical outlook on life.

That enough might be worth my vote, add in the fact he mirrors a good six of my primary positions and he had a lock on my vote. Toss in who he's running against and a Obama vote becomes an automatic.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I don't buy it because I have yet to see an actual issue, or scans, of The Ron Paul Survival Report. For such a famed racist rag, it's an amazingly rare collector's item.

Fair enough; but his legal views on individual rights suggest that the 1964 Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional. According to strict negative-rights libertarians like him, you have a right to be racist, sexist, etc. with your private business. So philosophically he is either inconsistent or sympathetic to views I find repugnant.

You cannot be beholden to small donors. What leverage do they have, threatening to withhold their $50 the next election cycle?

Circular reasoning. The "individual racists are better than corporate lobbyists because they cannot donate huge sums individually, i.e., they are not corporate lobbyists." It is possible to cause political harm through malignant influence of non-corporate influential political classes; otherwise according to you there was no pre-14th Amendment political corruption. Furthermore, as a class of donors, individual racists can influence the system greatly. I doubt they would tolerate civil rights legislation and still offer their collective donations.

Because there'd be a sane market rate, not one set by crazed economists attempting to create an impossible perpetual economic boom.

Oops, you're right, I forgot that before the Federal Reserve there was a paradise of free banking bereft of modern speculative pressures and panics...oh wait... The market (peace be upon it) will make it work. No pesky interference. In reality, the Federal Reserve has generally stabilized the boom/bust cycle greatly from the "Gilded Age" of laissez faire economics. You greatly overrate the stability of the free banking system, and obviously do so without reference to the evidence.

This is beside the fact that it is just another example of begging the question. The "sane market rate": the market will set a sane rate because the market sets sane rates. Of course according to the "market knows best" ideologues, speculative pressures and such are only created by meddlesome government, never the market itself. Which of course is utterly wrong. It is inconsistent with the record free banking and a gold standard had. This is why I call you an ideologue.

I'd rather we eliminate that tax completely and make up for the shortfall by reforming corporate tax law to eliminate loopholes.

Insanity; corporations will just move their incorporation elsewhere and hide assets. You don't know how cruise liner companies are generally never legally based in the U.S.? You could not completely recover the entire income tax revenue from corporate tax (it would also result in higher prices). This is of course a red herring and a backpedal because this is in-context of Ron Paul. He does not support income taxes, nor corporate income and capital gains. He supports 18th century excise taxes and uniform tariffs: regressive taxes.

Also on Ron Paul, he's a believer in Austrian School economics; if people have a problem with poor empirical discipline in the economics discipline, the Austrian School is a riot. It rejects in principle reliance on mathematics and econometrics. They are not published much in mainstream journals (fringe economics), and they reject the scientific method and empiricism in favor of supposedly self-evident axioms and logical reasoning. I would prefer to refrain from someone who believes in Aristotelian economics. I am a firmer believer in empiricism.

Sounds to me like you have taken his platform as beneficial on the basis of ideology, rather than logic and evidence.

I think Ron Paul's voting record is consistent with his stated beliefs.

That does not make him or you not an ideologue who prefers theories which appeal to your personal whimsy over the observed reality of their impacts on real people, populations, and nations and their inappropriateness for regulating and encouraging prosperity in a modern post-industrial society.

Right-libertarians need to realize this is not the early 19th century anymore.

[Medic]

I can't find it on his campaign site and am not sure anymore that that's where I read it but he had one policy statement stating among other things he would actually listen to the advice of professionals in other fields and realizes a professional opinion will be worth far more than his in matters he is ignorant in.

Contrast this with Bush.

[Elfdart]

For me it's fairly simple:

1) Edwards and Kucinich are out, and so is Dodd. These were the candidates I was considering along with Obama.

2) On the most important subject (Iraq), Obama is right and Clinton and McCain and Hucksterbee are wrong. I'd like to have a President who doesn't fuck things up for a change. The most telling thing was a statement he gave about how he intends to change the mentality that causes this country to get into wars like Iraq. If that means what I think it means, no neocons need apply.

3) In his personal and public dealings, Obama has been about as honest as one could expect from a politician. I seriously doubt he would abuse his authority like Clinton and Bush have done -and like Clinton and McCain would do in the future. In other words, no torture, no bombing aspirin factories to get your girlfriend's name off the front page, no invasions for oil or to one-up Daddy, no use of taxpayer money to get bimbos to shut up, no pardons for government thugs or well-heeled crooks. Do I know Obama won't do any of that? I can't guarantee it. But McCain and the Clintons would almost certainly do all of the above.

4) I don't think I can vote for Hillary, period. No one on this board has more contempt for the Crawford Caligula and Dick Vader than I do. But if you look at the long list of things Dubya has done that makes him such a disgrace, many of them were started in the Clinton administration, including:

kidnapping people overseas
helping kill off @ 1 million Iraqis
locking people up in Guantanamo, so as to deny them due process of law
illegal spying on citizens
giving away the store to the corporate sector
handing out last-second pardons to friends and accomplices in exchange for their silence

As much as any person with common sense detests the Patriot Act, we should keep in mind that most of the police state measures in that act (and others like it) were constantly being pimped by Clinton's DoJ, as well as Bush's henchmen. The Sept 11 bombings just got those Enabling Acts passed in Congress. So anyone who votes for Hillary has no business complaining if, by January 2010, we still have troops in Iraq, the government still wiretaps illegally, inmates are still disappeared and tortured and KBR gets a few more no-bid contracts -this time to build more kennels in Guantanamo.

At least with Obama (should he turn out to be a lying hack and no different from the others), one could say (as Mae West did) that given a choice of evils, you chose the one you haven't tried before.

[CmdrWilkens]

I can't find it on his campaign site and am not sure anymore that that's where I read it but he had one policy statement stating among other things he would actually listen to the advice of professionals in other fields and realizes a professional opinion will be worth far more than his in matters he is ignorant in.

Contrast this with Bush.

Admittedly Bush also campaigned that he would let reasoned arguments and logic dictate his science and education policy. The difference is that I actually trust Obama on this.

[Guardsman Bass]

Plus, I think the "Bush was likeable, too" comparison is disingenous. Bush's record, along with Karl Rove's antics in Texas, were right there, waiting for people to dig them up and deliver a killing blow to the "nice guy" image. Bush had a history of this kind of stuff. Obama really doesn't, unless you count the Resko thing.

[Sea Skimmer]

Bush had a history of this kind of stuff. Obama really doesn't, unless you count the Resko thing.

Course, Obama doesn’t have much a history of anything, good or bad, which is good or bad depending all on how you want to look at things.

If he wins I’ll support him, until if and when he actually does something that would give me reason to do otherwise, but as it is I think I’ll just not be voting for president this election. I really can’t imagine my state isn’t going to go democratic no matter who the candidates are anyway; though I suppose if Huckabee gets the republican nomination it will be necessary to vote against him to be certain of things.

[Darth Raptor]

Well, repeating the same thing and expecting a different result is the basic definition of insanity, so even if Obama turns out to be an unscrupulous douchebag, he's still the sane choice. Almost by definition.

Question Mark for president!

[Patrick Degan]

For a long time, I was undecided between Obama and Clinton, and perhaps leaning toward Hillary on the experience angle as opposed to Obama. But having observed the two campaigns, I've seen how all of Hillary's alleged experience has utterly failed to cope with the challenge of Obama, that her campaign has made one wrong decision after another after another after another and this is supposed to be the person who's as smart as Bill. Her campaign has failed to demonstrate this.

If she can't manage a presidential campaign with any better strategic competence than what's been exhibited so far, how can anybody expect her to outwit terrorists and the GOP?

I also remember how she bungled health care when that initiative was given to her: the penchant for secrecy during its planning and the result being such a convoluted scheme designed more to serve the interests of the health and insurance industries rather than the public and one which was bound to fall of its own weight and it did. That combined with the way she and her people have been mishandling her campaign doesn't give me a lot of confidence regarding her readiness for the presidency.

There's also the factor of the Clinton-hate industry which is gearing up even now for the general election. That alone is enough to fire up the Dittoborg and the Christian Taliban into trooping out in strong numbers to support even McCain if it means keeping the Clintons out of the White House, and McCain is a tired old man who should be easy to steamroll, but Hillary won't manage it.

I know that smells like the "electability" argument but in this case it does apply. Hillary Clinton is not really somebody most people can get excited for, but plenty can get excited against and will.

You'd think she would have all the advantages and does on paper: experience both in the Senate and as an intimate part of the Bill Clinton White House for eight years, long experience in the legal field and as a political thinker and strategist, the experience of a long-time staff, and having Bill Clinton as part of her campaign team. Unfortunately, each of these has proven either ineffectual or a distinct liability. Particularly, paradoxically, Big Dog himself —the more she leans on him, the more she's seen as incapable of proving herself strong and independent enough to be president on her own terms and Bill has not exactly done her campaign proud of late. More and more, it seems he's lost his cool and it's always been the case that when he lets that happen, he loses his touch with the public. To be blunt about it, the Clintons are stumbling all over themselves. And that doesn't exactly bode well for the sort of White House Hillary would run in a crisis situation (or even under normal circumstances) if she did manage to get elected.

In short, I cannot make myself believe that Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president or even to be the Democratic nominee.

By contrast, Barak Obama has proven suprisingly able to have come out and presented such a challenge on his first time out in a national campaign against Hillary the nominee-presumptive. His positions on health care, technology issues, and nuclear power as well as on the Iraq war and the employment of knowledgable people as opposed to ideologues and sycophants for policy advice are ones I can readily support. Also, assuming that he remains a fighter through the general election, he stands a far better chance of taking down McCain —who won't be able to make himself look like anything other than a tired old man and party hack in comparison.

I think Barak Obama stands the better chance and, even with his supposed inexperience, would actually be the better choice for the presidency over Hillary Clinton any day of the week. I voted for him in the primary and can vote for him easily in the general election.

[Patrick Degan]

There is yet another reason why I can't be comfortable with a Hillary presidency: assuming that she actually is elected and gets a full two terms, it will essentially mean that the presidency will have been under the control of two families for nearly four decades (if we choose to count George Herbert Hoover Bush being the puppetmaster of the Reagan White House as well). Dynastic presidencies cannot be at all good for the health of a democratic republic. For me, a vote for Obama is less about change and more about interrupting the trend toward oligarchy in this country.