Why I support Obama

A friend whom I’ve known for more than 30 years often kids me that I seldom pick the winning candidate in the presidential elections. I’ve retorted that although this is often true, my personal convictions are such that I always back the most progressive candidate. Unfortunately, that person almost never gets the nomination. These included Gary Hart in 1984, Paul Simon in 1988 and Jerry Brown in 1992. But the nature of the beast in the primaries often means that the most liberal/progressive candidate gets slimed by the conservative media and almost never has a real chance to actually win the Democratic nomination, which brings us to 2008.

My primary choice this time and in 2004 was Dennis Kucinich. He (along with ex-GA congresswoman Cynthia McKinney) is one of the very few politicians in the country who actually had the courage to stand up and demand the impeachment of George Bush AND Dick Cheney. These two loathsome excuses for humanity have committed more real crimes against the U.S. Constitution and the American people than virtually any President and Vice President in history, so this alone earned him my support.

Also unfortunately, the man has an image problem, and many have dismissed him as a troll, similar to the image problems Senator Paul Simon had in 1988. It should NOT matter how a person looks, since we are allegedly electing a national leader, NOT participating in a beauty contest. But the shallow nature of our popular culture dictates otherwise.

That being said, I threw my support to John Edwards. Edwards had the best populist economic message, the best message of hope and change (at the time) and I also admired him for not taking any corporate donations for his campaign, which meant he would not be bound by special interests. The Republican slime machine obviously saw this and felt threatened by his candidacy. For well over a year, FOX “news”, especially Bill O’Reilly called Edwards a liar, a hypocrite, a phony and worse. Ann Coulter even went as far to publicly call him a faggot on two occasions. Conservatives have claimed for decades that liberal men are effeminate pussies and that only conservative Republicans are “real” men. After a string of 3rd-place showings in the early primaries, Edwards dropped out in early February.

This left Senators Obama and Clinton, and for me this was a no-brainer. I lost respect for the Clintons years ago. I will always feel that Clinton was a FAR better president than Bush OR Reagan, but the Clintons have gotten FAR too chummy with the Bush family, especially Bush Sr. and NOTHING can possibly make me comfortable with that. Plus, Hillary Clinton has sold out just too many of her principals to get this far, taking major campaign donations from the health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies. And she has not hesitated to slime Obama herself, including weighing in on this absurd non-issue about Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

I personally LOVE the fact that either a white woman or a black man will be the Democratic nominee this fall, as opposed to the same crop of boring old conservative white men who still dominate the Republican Party. But I will not apologize for Senator Obama not being my first choice. We have just endured almost eight years of the most far-right administration in history, and the pendulum will just not swing from far-right to far-left overnight, and THE issue this year is to send a message that we will not tolerate another Republican administration following the crimes of the Bush administration.

And after all of THAT being said, Obama deserves our support, NOT just for being a better and stronger candidate than Hillary Clinton, but also for his being able to resonate a real sense of hope and change not seen since Robert Kennedy in 1968. And that he is a good man who cares more about the direction of our country and the welfare of its people than the Republicans ever will. Some say that his candidacy is far too divisive for the country, but that is rank hypocrisy after looking at Bush’s pathetic record of cynically dividing the entire country along every conceivable line imaginable. The primary fear is that a black man actually has a REAL chance of winning not just the nomination of his party but the actual presidency.

Since 2000, the fear-mongers of the far-right have all but paralyzed our country and poisoned real debate and rational discussion. It goes without saying that they wish to keep it that way, and Obama is their worst nightmare. So if we collectively think this primary season has gotten ugly, it is NOTHING compared to what is ahead if Obama faces John McCain. Our work is cut out for us as we need to get the black, Jewish, Latino, progressive and youth vote out in the greatest numbers ever seen. We DO have a right to decide the direction of our lives and of this country and to ignore the voices of fear and hate. Therefore, I close out this essay with a quote by Martin Luther King Jr.:

“Normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyses us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare; abnormal fear constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. Our problem is not to be rid of fear but, rather to harness and master it.”