I only made my decision to support Obama a few weeks ago. And I was thinking today about why I made that decision.
It's not about Hillary-hatred. I like Hillary Clinton a great deal and think she has an excellent history of supporting the causes I believe in (so Obama supporters looking forward to some Hillary-trashing, don't bother to read further). If she wins the nomination, I will not only be out there working for her, I'll be enthusiastic about it.
My gripe with Hillary over the Iraq vote, the more recent Iran vote and the bankruptcy vote is in the context of years of making the right choices and standing up for children and families. So Obama is not the "not-Hillary" for me, although his voting record is slightly better (but shorter) than hers.
I can't say it's entirely on policy either, though, on balance, I slightly prefer Obama's positions.
I think both of them have flawed health plans and hope that if we get one of them into the White House, that person will take a 2nd, 3rd...nth look at their plan and realize it needs much improvement. But once again, looking at slight differences, Obama's statement during the last debate about putting the discussion on C-SPAN for all people in the U.S. to see was tremendously appealing. And I will hold him to it if he is our next President.
I think both Obama and Hillary will try to do the right thing about Iraq and will have impossible choices to make there. I don't think either of them will be entirely successful because Bush is leaving things in such terrible shape -- something Hillary made an excellent statement about in the last debate. But once again, I really liked Obama stating that he won't keep troops in Iraq.
And I also like Obama for a talent which a very good friend of mine, an extremely rational guy, describes as the ability to pull in people, including people who oppose each other, and have them come up with a plan that might actually work because they all have a stake in it.
But I admit that a large part of my choice of Obama is purely emotional. That is, he is so damn likable! But I think that is also the rational core of my decision. This is not as contradictory as it seems.
When Reagan was running for President, there were lots of people, liberals, pro-choice, feminists, who were voting for him. I was astounded. I despised Reagan (would use a stronger word, but that's reserved for the current occupants of the White House). I kept asking these people -- how can you vote for someone whose stated policies are the exact opposite of what you believe in? And there would be all this hemming and hawing before it finally came down to -- they liked him. To me it was incomprehensible; how could they be such dupes? There was even a Saturday Night Live skit, based on the Invasion of the Bodysnatchers movie, that showed all these liberal Dems being replaced by Reagonite vegetable-versions of themselves.
I think Obama has some of that same charm. But this time, it's charm that is part of an excellent intellect, a wealth of leadership talent, and a dedication to the issues that I most care about. So this time, the people who will be voting for him despite the fact that they disagree with almost everything he stands for are the people on the other side -- Republicans, conservatives, or the naive apoliticals.
And this time that charm can be used to move the U.S. in the direction of compassion and caring, of improvement in health care and education, in ending war and encouraging diplomacy. And maybe this charm can provide the sort of teflon-shield Reagan enjoyed, but instead of protecting a man who represented selfishness, greed and backwards policies, it will protect our efforts to make this country more tolerant, egalitarian, peaceful and humane.
And I believe that just as Reagan didn't move one iota toward my beliefs during his Presidency (except, sort of by accident, when it came to the Cold War), Obama won't move toward the conservative point of view.