McCain. His Straight Talk Express and willingness to be honest
appealed to me a lot. However, all that is gone now (McCain stopped
his Straight Talk Express). However, as I learned more about each
delegate, I started leaning more towards Barack Obama. McCain's pick
of Sarah Palin for VP made me adamant about Barack Obama winning.
Palin's interview where she tried to argue that being close to Russia
gives her foreign policy experience gave me the impression that she is
not prepared to be vice president nor president if the need arises.
Her later actions (prosecuted for ethics) and beliefs (no abortion
even in case of rape) further cemented my dislike of Palin.
So why does Barack Obama appeal to me?
First off, look at his life story. It is the modern day version of the
American dream. He grew up off of food stamps when he lived with his
mother in the United States. His father left him when he was very
young because he wanted to return to Kenya where he had a second wife.
His mother than remarried and Obama relocated to Indonesia. He moved
once more back to the United States in fifth grade to live with his
grandparents. Even with all this moving around and abnormal childhood,
Obama still manage to make it to Harvard. But, he not only made it to
Harvard, but was also elected as president of the Harvard Law Review.
At Whitney, we worry about getting into UCLA, Stanford, Harvard, but
we grew up in a much better situation than Obama. It is extraordinary
that Obama achieved so much in the face of adversity. You would expect
that with the unstable family life, Obama would grow up to be an angry
young man who will not amount to much. Yet, Obama is the calmest
presidential candidate I have seen, never getting angry, always
maintaining his cool.
Besides his personal life, his policies also appeal to me. His refusal
to cut taxes for the rich makes sense. Bush had cut taxes on rich
people, but had to later raise taxes on everyone. Under Bush's term,
the rich-poor divide grew significantly with the rich getting richer
and everyone else staying the same. McCain also proposes cutting taxes
on everyone including the rich, but where will all that lost revenue
come from? Education? Defense? Infrastructure?
Also, concentrating U.S. forces in Afghanistan makes a lot more sense
concentrating everything on Iraq. According to many sources
(Democratic and Republican and independent) Afghanistan is where the
Taliban and Al Qaeda are based. Instead of killing innocent civilians
in Iraq, we should go after the terrorists in the sparsely populated
mountainous regions of Afghanistan.
Obama is also much more knowledgeable about current events. At the
debates, he was always the more prepared candidate and could back up
all his claims instead of just gettign angry and accuse the opponent
of being eloquent. He is also prudent enough not to sing "Bomb Bomb
Bomb Iran" or joke about how increasing American tobacco exports to
Iran were a secret way of killing Iranians. Yes, admittedly those were
just jokes, but imagine if the leader of North Korea sang the same
Bomb song except replaced Iran with USA. Or what if someone joked
about killing Americans? How diplomatic would that be?
Also, McCain prides himself as reaching across party lines. However,
now so many Republicans are supporting Obama (ex: Colin Powell). If
McCain can't even earn the support of his own party, how can he be
bipartisan?
Obama however appeals to both parties a lot more, with a large
percentage of his supporters as independents and moderate Republicans.
There is even a group called Rednecks for Obama
(http://www.rednecks4obama.
canyons what is?
In addition, Obama is more likely to be an independent than McCain,
contrary to popular belief. The vast majority of Obama's campaign
funds came from the many Internet donars. His campaign spends as much
in one day as McCain's campaign raises in five days. As a result, he
does have any financial ties to the Democratic Party. On the contrary
he hold much sway over the Democratic Party because he holds a long
list of donors (that he does not have to disclose if their
contribution is less than 1000). If the Democratic politicians want
that list, they would have to listen to Obama. (argument from an
article from Time magazine). McCain on the other hand received half
his money from the Republican party.
And McCain keeps talking about cutting costs. However, look at his
personal life. He wears $550 shoes. The Republicans also spent
$150,000 just for Palin's clothes and makeup.
http://www.politico.com/news/
costs for his own campaign, how can he cut costs for the nation?
Obama runs his campaign much more efficiently. For example, staffers
are only reimbursed if they take the subway to the campaign office
instead of taking a taxi (a few dollars vs. about fifty dollars). Sure
this is just a small thing, but this really made a great impression on
me. After all, it is says a lot about how they will truly act once in
office.
Obama grew up as one of us, and he managed to rise above us through
his hard work. He knows what it's like to have college loans (his wife
and him just paid off their college loans with proceeds from their
books). Obama has been hammered for his house that's worth $1 million
dollars. However, he only owns one home and ONE car. McCain on the
other hand owns 7 houses and 11 cars.
(http://blogs.abcnews.com/
can understand what it is like to be part of middle class America, but
he is also better than us, able to work hard and rise in society.
Maybe it says something if a kid in kindergarten dreamed of being
president of the United States, even though he lived off of food
stamps and his dad left him
...and now that he is so close to achieving his dream. For me, that is
the American dream.
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