Well, as a registered Democrat (sorry, all you folks who tell me I should just give up and go Republican), my ballot will really have two choices on it.<\/p>\n
After thinking long and hard about it, I’m going to vote for Obama.<\/b> Here’s why.I ‘get it’ that Hillary is more likely to be cautious about doing stupid things in Iraq (announcing that everyone there needs to get on a plane and come home next week), and that electing her gives us a chance to make the Long War a bipartisan problem. That was the biggest argument in her favor, but it wasn’t enough to tip me in her favor. <\/p>\n
Simply put, I’d rather close my eyes and vote for Obama than hold my nose and vote for Hillary. We have – really – no idea what kind of President Barack Obama might become. He could be JFK (all nice suit, no substance) or he could become FDR – who was a State Senator before he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and then an unsuccessful candidate for VP. I profoundly disagree with his foreign policies as set out in his speeches and articles<\/a>; while I find myself largely in agreement with his domestic policies (guns: not so much<\/a>) my belief is that neither will survive much contact with reality.<\/p>\n So the question is whether the values he expresses – love of country, a desire to create a political space open to people who disagree, a refusal to demonize – will grow into policies and programs that express those values. The differentiator here is that Hillary is<\/b> the sum of her policies; what higher values does she express other than an entitlement to power?<\/p>\n Obama is often criticized as being nothing but charisma, and devalued for that. But the reality is that charisma is critical to the job of President – the biggest part of the job is convincing us of things, and charisma helps here a lot.<\/p>\n I’m not sure if I’ll vote for him in the final. There’s another bridge or two to get over between here and there. We’ll see how his foreign policy views develop under chanllenge, and how he stands up when he really gets hammered.<\/p>\n So let’s see how he does.<\/p>\n If you’re a Republican, you could vote for Romney – who, in my view, has the potential to be the Jimmy Carter of the New Millennium, totally arrogant in his certainty and certain to be confounded by the messy realities he would face in office. Let’s forget that the fact that he’s ahead here in California is a pluperfect manifestation of the idiotic nature of the GOP here, who should be striving for purple votes, and instead are increasingly tightening the ideological barriers to joining up. <\/p>\n So if you’re a Republican, have some sense and vote for McCain.<\/p>\n Meanwhile let’s talk about the propositions.<\/p>\n Prop 91 sequesters gas tax funds – which are supposed to be sequestered, but which are typically ‘borrowed’ by the Gov. and Legislature. <\/p>\n No. We hire the Gov. and the Legislature to run the joint; the idea that we’re going to keep tying their hands through budgeting-by-initiative seems just plan bad. Let’s not do it.<\/p>\n Prop 92 changes the formula for allocating school funds in a way that will substantially increase the allocation to community colleges. <\/p>\n No. More budgeting at the ballot box.<\/p>\n Prop 93 has been discussed already.<\/p>\n Hell, no.<\/p>\n Props 94 – 97 ratify deals the Gov made with the local Indian Tribes to allow them to expand their gambling operations, in return for cash.<\/p>\n No. Look, if we’re going to support the state on sin taxes, let’s go the whole way. And I have big problems with the semi-extraterritoriality of the tribes – and I say this as someone who could probably make a plausible claim to membership in one of them. The tribes are subject to US laws – or not. If not, they have to act like foreign powers when it comes to domestic politics.<\/p>\n So it’s easy – just vote ‘no’ on everything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Armed Liberal endorses Obama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}