wait, what are we voting for again?
by Ian Schuldt
Published: April 16, 2008
I thought seeing as how the new biggest primary of the election is coming up I would try a novel idea. I’d like to try and tell people why they should vote for Barack Obama. I know nobody’s really done that in awhile, mostly just attacks here or attacks there, accusation this, accusation that. I guess I’m just in the Christmas spirit what with it being almost time to start shopping again.
There’s been a lot of fake talk about these candidates the last couple months. There are people on both sides and in the media who want to try and paint Hillary and Barack one way or another. The truth is from the very outset these candidates have been basically the same. Regardless of the talk, neither one of them has a ton of experience. Hillary has been a senator 8 years. Barack only 4, but he was also a state senator before that. Their ideas on most issues are basically Democratic positions. They feel about the same on immigration, abortion, guns, economy, health care, social security, the war, etc. To me, though, there are four major differences that really separate these candidates, and in my opinion they all favor Barack Obama.
The first of which was the vote on the war in Iraq. Obama was right from the get go - from “Day One,” if you will. For all Hillary’s scare tactics about who is answering the phone at 3 a.m. she dropped the ball on the most important decision she’s had to make as a leader. She buckled under the pressure and went with what was popular, not what was right. That’s not what an experienced leader does, that’s not what I want the next president of the United States to do.
The second of which is health care. While both candidates have fairly similar health care plans, there is one significant difference that is important. Hillary Clinton wants to force everyone in America to buy health care whether they can afford it or not. Barack Obama wants to bring down the cost of it so that anyone who wants it can afford it. Both of these plans bring us dangerously close to socialized medicine. The difference is Clinton’s actually is socialism, Barack is at least giving consenting adults the freedom to choose.
Free health care for all sounds great, but so do free homes, free food, free cars and free iPods. You have to draw the line somewhere. If you’ve ever been to a free clinic you’d know that half of the people in there are strung out druggies and it’s not the kind of place you want to go to get medical care. Socializing the entire medical industry will cause many more problems then it solves. If we can make health care affordable so that decent working families can buy it, they will buy it, and if they don’t it’s their own fault.
The third issue is foreign relations. For decades now we have had a policy of strong-arming and saber-rattling our enemies overseas. This has not made us safer. Our arrogance and unwillingness to talk to countries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela has only given them more and more reasons to hate us and undermine us. Hillary Clinton believes in continuing these practices of not meeting with our enemies. This is the type of policy that gives America a bad image in the world to begin with.
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” - Albert Einstein
Barack Obama wants to change that policy. He wants to meet face to face with other foreign dignitaries - even the ones that don’t like us. Anyone who’s ever argued on the Internet knows that it’s a lot easier to create a hateful image of another person when you’re not speaking face to face with them. If we’re going to repair the damage done to the reputation of this country by the Bush administrations (and to a lessor extent the previous Clinton administration), we need to be willing to go out and show people that we are not the power mongers that we are made out to be by people all over the world.
Some people would say that’s foolish. That if we talk to them it will be like we’re giving in. That is completely false. There is a big difference between giving in and talking to a person, listening to what they have to say, looking them in the eye and telling them where you stand. People need to understand that we are not the bad guys in the world. You can’t give them the cold shoulder and just expect them to come around out of fear. That creates enemies not allies.
That brings me to the final major reason why I’m voting for Barack Obama. When the founding fathers of this country got together and created the three branches of government, they knew they didn’t want a king like the one they had just gotten rid of. But they knew that their newly-formed government needed a face - a figurehead to be the the primary representative of this newly formed republic.
The president of the United States isn’t just an administrator. The president is the face of our nation. Is it any wonder that people around the world think of American’s as stupid and arrogant? Look who we’ve had in the White House for the last seven years. How can they not think that way? There are two things you need to be a leader: you have to know where you’re going and you have to be able to convince people to follow you.
Barack Obama’s ability to speak, inspire and motivate is not just a nice thing to have in a leader, it’s a necessity. Not even Hillary Clinton herself would try and dispute that Barack wins hands down in that department. I realize that we elect our leader, not the rest of the world, but if they did - Barack Obama would win in a land slide.
Like it or not we have an image problem in this country. When a president becomes unpopular in this country, he becomes a lame duck. It becomes impossible for him to do anything, because nobody wants to be associated with him. The same is true of our country. People around the world don’t want to help us fight the War on Terror because they don’t want to be associated with us. People associate a country with the leader they elect. The ability of a leader to carry him or herself, speak in public and motivate the masses is hugely important in terms of how other countries view us.
If we want to solve our problems around the world we must first repair the damage done to our standing by the Bush administration. Electing an African American, with a name like Obama, who can speak, motivate and inspire the way he can would be the polar opposite of the bumbling, incoherent, spoiled little rich kid we’ve had for the last 8 years. That fact alone would do more for our foreign relations problems before Obama was even sworn in than Hillary could do her whole term.
Politics is perception, like it or not. How you are perceived is just as important as what you want to do. The perception of Hillary by most of the people in this country and throughout the world is that she is a double talking, do-anything-to-get-elected, old-school politician. Obama is lauded by many not only here in America, but throughout the world as a savior.
Now I’m not saying you elect someone just because they give fancy speaches, but no matter what any Hillary Clinton supporter wants to tell you, there is very little difference between the experience and the actual policies of the two candidates. The biggest difference between them is that Hillary is a politician, Obama is a leader. This country needs a leader. This country needs Barack Obama.
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(11)
April 17th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Very well written…great points about the four differing issues. The war stands out most to me, but I think you did an excellent job depicting the current campaign that has taken on more of a reality tv stigma than that of a political race.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Hillary’s actually only been a Senator for 7 years. She ws sworn in in 2000 and re-elected in 2006.