Shades of White
[2008-01-31 20:30]

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama just finished a debate in Los Angeles and now the news pundits are going through their usual dissections to try to glean some insights. The pundits have mentioned several times that the debate didn't highlight any major differences between the candidates (apart from the biological ones, of course). However, while I think the distinctions that were drawn were subtle, I do believe they were there. And they further cement my support for Obama over Clinton.

Recently, my friends were discussing the two candidates and how it seemed like a toss up between the two. A couple of friends mentioned that they were leaning towards Obama, but for no real good reason (or, at least, for no reasons they could verbalize). I sympathize with their dilemma because the two really are similar in terms of goals and policies. To me, however, there is a very real distinction between Obama and Clinton, albeit one that is difficult to explain, and it is the main reason I support Obama.

I believe strongly in the notion that you cannot build a straight house with crooked boards, which is just another way of saying that you reap what you sow, and you are what you eat.

The very best thing that I can say about George W Bush is that he uses a lot of crooked boards. Even if his goals are good and noble (and I have doubts about that too), his methodology sucks. So, at best, I'd have to consider him a failure. At worst, I'd consider him a villain. In reality, I think he's a little of both. Now, while I think both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are leagues above Dubya, I believe that Clinton is much more likely to use those crooked boards than Obama is. This is the difference between the old way of doing politics and a new one, and this is why I support Obama.

An example of this was revealed during this evening's debate when Clinton was asked if she would be willing to say that her vote to authorize the war on Iraq was a mistake. Her response was to point out that the U.S. has used threats of force as leverage to get "bad actors" to move in ways we want before. She said the problem, in this case, was that the person wielding that leverage (Dubya) went much further than anyone could have imagined. In my opinion, this demonstrates how the old way is flawed, and how Clinton does not recognize that flaw.

Clinton's rationale is that we've done this before and it's never caused any problems. That's a bit like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. If Hillary is correct in that we've done this (given a president authorization to wage a pre-emptive war on another country) before, then that's really not a defense, in my opinion. It just means that we've been very fortunate that no one has taken advantage of this mistake before now. But, as human beings, we should all realize that there are people out there who don't think or behave the way that we think they should. So, giving another person a loaded gun and hoping that they won't shoot us will eventually lead to our disappointment, if we repeat the process enough times.

I think that this is also why the Clinton campaign tried to counter Obama's campaign slogan of Hope. In the old way of doing things, hope really does mean blind hope, as Hillary suggested and warned us against. We give Dubya authorization to wage war and just hope that he won't. But that's not the kind of Hope that I want, or the kind of Hope that Obama is talking about.

And because Obama's methodology (and judgment) seems to be good, then if Obama is elected president I think that he will accomplish a lot of the things that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards wanted to do as president as well, because I suspect he'll tap their big brains anyway (either by making them a running mate or offering them cabinet appointments). So Obama has that going for him, as well. By contrast, I think it's less likely that we will get the benefits of Obama if Hillary is the president. Even if he becomes her vice president, I believe she will be too inclined in doing things the old way. The "Clinton machine" will run the White House, and I don't want a machine for president. Rage against the machine!

This is the kind of change that I want to see in government as well. Every candidate has jumped on the Change bandwagon recently, but Obama is the only real one, I think. When I was a kid, I had a pet hamster. Every now and then, the hamster would take all the wood shavings in its cage and move them to one side of the cage. A few days later, he'd take all those shavings and move them to the other side of the cage. For the past 7 years, the Bush administration has moved all of America's wood shavings into one tiny corner of the cage. The change that Hillary and most of the other candidates talk about, is moving those shavings back to other areas of the cage. Now I believe that Hillary would be very good at doing that, and I don't doubt that she'd succeed. But I believe that Obama is the one who is the most likely to break us out of the cage altogether (or, at least, change the nature of the cage or the wood shavings, as far as the analogy goes).

Lastly, I also like some of the things that Obama says he wants to do as president -- namely, restore accountability to the government. Among other things, he promises to create publicly accessible and searchable (internet) databases of bills passing through congress, who voted on them, who introduced which earmarks, etc. He also promises to create publicly accessible and searchable databases of campaign contributors and their contributions. Increasing transparency in the government is a good thing, in my opinion.

So, for these and a lot of other little reasons, Obama is my candidate. I don't think that Hillary would be a bad president, but I think Obama will be better. Oh, and I think an Obama/Edwards ticket would be super cool, but that's really just a knee-jerk reaction and I don't know if that would be the best ticket available (I know a lot of folk are talking Obama/Clinton). In any event, I'm still an Independent and still not sure if I am allowed into the Democratic caucus for the state of Washington. I need to figure that one out soon.

[btw, my concerns with Hillary are not limited to Hillary -- she's not the only one stuck in the old way of doing things. This is also why I can say with confidence that gender plays no role in my decision. If we some how allowed Bill Clinton to run for a third term and it were him instead of Hillary, I'd still support Obama. Frankly, I think I'd support Obama even if Al Gore were running.]