For a couple of weeks, I stewed and fumed about the candidate wars here. Because I had finally decided to throw my lot in with Edwards, I was particularly drawn into the near-enmity between Obama and Edwards supporters. My opinion of Obama has been influenced, at least to some extent, by the attitudes of some of the more vocal and strident Obama supporters here. Then, a couple of days ago, I had an epiphany: my primary is February 12. I can do nothing more than support Edwards in my primary, and then support whomever gets the nomination come November. Getting mired in the personal attacks and crossfire between the Edwards camp and the Obama camp was pointless. I actually had it easy – I would get to vote for my guy in my primary (a first – I have yet to vote for a candidate I really like) and then, in November, would do the right thing regardless of whoever got the nomination, and vote for the Democrat. Coming to this realization did my blood pressure and sanity a lot of good, because I felt like I could finally overcome the rubbernecker within who insisted on being invested in the Obama/Edwards wars here.
And then, of course, today happened. And now I have to choose a different candidate.
I feel like I ought to vote for one of the remaining candidates in my primary, because a protest vote for a candidate who has voluntarily stopped campaigning does no one any good. Writing in Edwards might feel good, but it doesn't help the process or the eventual nominee (in which case, maybe it wouldn't feel very good after all. I don't know).
Edwards said what I needed to hear so thoroughly and completely that I didn't feel like I needed to really delve into what Clinton and Obama were promising. The news is so much fluff and doesn't tell me what I need to know about these two candidates. I didn't follow diaries about Obama and Clinton, either – mostly just Edwards diaries and non-primary diaries. So I'm a blank slate, and I need to pick someone, and I need a primer on the two candidates so I can make a solid decision that I feel good about when February 12 rolls around.
What I would like is if you'd tell me what you like about your candidate.
But first, let me tell you a little bit about what issues are important to me, and what bothers me about Obama and Clinton (from what little knowledge I'd garnered about each of them), so you'll know where I'm coming from and what I find important in a candidate.
Issues voter
- I think my single biggest issue is the role corporations have in government right now. This was a revelation to me, because I feel really strongly about civil liberties, health insurance, and a sound foreign policy as well. I had no idea, until very recently, how troublesome I find the intertwining of government and corporate entities. My realization came when I recognized how impressed I was with the fact that Edwards chose not to take any corporate money for his campaign. No lobbyists, no PACs, no corporate donations at all. It impressed me so much that, for the first time ever, I opened my wallet and gave money to a political campaign. I wanted to support someone who had blatantly said, "There will be no seat at the table for corporate interests that hurt Regular People," and who backed up that statement with actions. The corporate-government love affair is why gas costs so much and why little is actually being done to research or develop non-petroleum technologies to help us get away from our oil-driven society; it is why we are at war in a nation whom we should have left alone; it is why the war is being executed and "supported" so badly by rogue and lawless enterprises like Blackwater and Halliburton. This love affair is responsible for insurance companies playing doctor and people dying because of it, for people being unable to afford to take their kids to the doctor, and for killer drugs being put on the market and only pulled when there is a huge public outcry (but they are later re-packaged, re-named, and marketed aggressively at doctors who will then prescribe the same deadly drug to hapless patients – all for the bottom line). The corporate-government love affair is part of why there is so much useless security theater that, though it doesn't make us safer, does inconvenience us (at best) and violate us (at worst) and, maybe most importantly, serves the bottom lines of telecom companies, security companies, and unscrupulous companies ready to capitalize on the politics of greed and fear. The corporate-owned media is part of the reason there is a war, because they rah-rahed for it; they're part of the reason Joe Sixpack doesn't give a shit about the war, because either the media makes fluff and calls it news, or else crams more American Idol down our gullets; the media continues to try to drive the political narrative, largely succeeding in some cases, and has become nothing more than propaganda for their lover, our corrupt government. There are more ways in which I see our lives actively damaged by the greed of corporations and this government, which colludes with (and in many ways, serves) the corporate monsters, but you get the idea. I think corporations and their close alignment with the government are a big part of the reason that we have so very, very many problems today. That our government is a corporate whore has hurt almost all of us very, very badly, very insidiously, and it is so tangled into our everyday lives, that I believe if we make them break off the affair, we will all be better off. Edwards said he was going to do this, and backed up his words with the action of taking public financing. That was my number one reason for preferring him above the others. This is my biggest issue. Fix this one thing, and some of the other problems that need to be addressed will be much easier to begin to deal with.
- The economy. I am fortunate in that I am relatively well-off. Middle-upper middle class. I stay home with my four (five in a month!) kids, and my husband goes off to work. He makes good money. We are insured. Still, we live near DC, which is a heinously expensive place to live. My husband's verging on a six-figure income, and we still live pretty much paycheck-to-paycheck. But we have it good! We are in so much better shape than a huge number of Americans. I want to see the return of the middle class, a healthy economy that isn't borrowing against my children's and grandchildren's future or putting us in hock to China or the Saudis, a way to send our kids to college, and a way to save money so that my husband might be able to retire before he keels over dead. Even doing as well as we're doing, we have none of this now. I want real, concrete answers to fixing the economy, not vague talk about "making it better."
- Health insurance and medical costs. Again, we're lucky. We are insured. My two youngest had a stomach virus and became dehydrated; we took them to the hospital today, because they're little and dehydration takes a faster toll on them than it does big people. We could pay for our visit ($50 copay each, plus whatever we're billed for later). A lot of people can't. A lot of people wouldn't even think of taking their kids to the doctor or hospital for something like that because the costs of going to the hospital, and sometimes even the doctor, are so staggering, and can ruin you financially. I heard a story yesterday about a man who had cancer and had no insurance and could not get it. No one would take payments for treatment, so he couldn't have his cancerous tumors removed. He had to marry a close friend to get on her insurance. A marriage of convenience, because no one would help this man with his disease unless he was insured. My mother had cancer; fortunately, she was insured. She was as lucky as a person with cancer could be. A lot of people aren't. It has to stop. Even people who are insured, though, deal with overwhelming costs due to overly expensive charges that get tacked onto their bills (sometimes erroneously). Since when is a Band-Aid worth twenty bucks? Even if you have insurance and can pay the co-pay, will your insurance pay for those ten-dollar Tylenols? Will they pay for the CAT scan ordered by your doctor, or will you be stuck with the $3500 bill? Even people who are fortunate enough to have insurance, who can afford it and who qualify for it, are being bilked by a corrupt and broken system. These things must be changed.
- The environment. Our government should take a greater active role in addressing the concerns of carbon emissions, reliance on petroleum, and other serious environmental concerns. Not lip-service, not cutesy, meaningless names like the Clean Skies Initiative or "forest management" that entails clear-cutting stands of virgin timber on public land by the highest bidder for the privilege. My great desire is that whatever Democrat is elected will create a new cabinet position that will seriously, really address environmental concerns in a practical, concrete manner, and that Al Gore will be appointed as the cabinet secretary. A girl can dream.
- Civil liberties. No damn immunity for telecoms. Go back to using FISA the way it was meant to be used – used only with warrants, and sparingly so. No more spying on Americans, via phone or Internet. Take away some of the boogedy-boogedy useless security theater bullshit that does nothing to make us safer but everything to make us more fearful and less free. Cull all the Bad People lists of three year-olds, senators, regular people, maybe do away with the lists altogether. Close Gitmo. Stop the fucking torture. Indict those who have participated in torture in our names. Bring back habeus corpus. Give us our liberty, and our right to privacy, back.
- The war. I want us out of Iraq. I want us to do it responsibly, but I want us out. The public wants us out. The Iraqis want us out. And no more fucking wars for oil. I don't think Iran is our BFF or anything, but I don't think they're a threat. I want the drumbeats to stop. If we need to address foreign threats, yes, do it, but let's address the real ones, not the ones sitting on "our" oil. Stop pretending to protect us by not inspecting ships coming in to port, or by humiliating us when we fly. Protect us really, and not just from brown people, but from the mouth-breathers who torch abortion clinics and who mail out letters full of anthrax to Democratic senators.
- Hold to account the "bad apples" of this administration. Period. I would rather see John Edwards as Attorney General than as a veep, because I think he would take names and kick ass. Whoever holds that position needs to. Transparency in government goes hand-in-glove with this. Let in some damn sunshine.
- No Child Left Behind. They'd have been better off left behind than what's happening now. Fix it.
- Civil rights. It's nobody's business who's marrying whom, as long as all parties involved are sentient, mentally sound human beings. Legalize gay marriage. Also, women are not breeders. OK, well, some of us choose to be. But the key here is the choice. Appoint Supreme Court justices who will counteract the Alitos and Scalias and Thomases and keep women's choices legal. Finally, Mexicans are not our enemies. Stop building that asinine fence and find a way to let our country continue being the melting pot it started as.
Issues with Clinton
- She's hawkish, cozier with corporations than I'm comfy with, and I worry she'll be a triangulator like her husband.
- I worry that, especially after being skewered for "crying" in NH (I liked seeing the softer, human side of her), she will feel the need to overcompensate, since she's a powerful woman in a man's world, and will stay hawkish and will triangulate.
- I worry she's too much of a politician. (See "triangulation.") So polished. Where is the passion?
- I hear that her health care plan is closer to Edwards' than Obama's is. How? And what other issues will she fix, and how? What will her experience do for our country?
- Electability – she is such a polarizing figure, even among Democrats. Will she bring the Republicans out in droves to vote against her? Can she win the general?
- Bill. I didn't like him when he was president, and I like him even less now. He's really put a tarnish on what I liked about her. I worry about his being back in the White House again. Will he sit back and let her do her thing? He hasn't seemed willing to thus far; who's he campaigning for, anyway?
- She's definitely a fighter, but I have been unhappy to see her campaign doing to fellow Dems what she should be saving for the Republicans. Very disappointing. Also, the John Edwards robo-calls in South Carolina really pissed me off, on a more personal, less big-tent way, and that affects how I perceive her.
Issues with Obama
- He seems smug and impatient when he's challenged. I saw bits of this in the last debate, and I didn't like it. Accomplished and proud of it is fine for me, but arrogance? Do not want. And I got a whiff of this when watching the last debate. I didn't like the condescending way he spoke to John Edwards a couple of times during the debate, either. (I will say that the anecdote going around yesterday about how he saved Bill Richardson's bacon in an earlier debate soothed some of this worry for me, but not entirely.)
- What are his specific, concrete, real plans for fixing the things that are important to me? He gives great speeches, but I don't hear a lot of specificity in them, and I miss that. What does "change" mean to Obama?
- Is he electable? I mean, I think he has lots of Democrats behind him, obviously, but will racists go for him in the general? In a world where it's OK for John McCain to call human beings "gooks" and still get the top votes in Republican primaries, I worry that "the black man" won't garner the necessary votes. (I worry about this with "the woman," too, but I admit that I think Clinton's much-touted experience will help her in that regard more than Obama's level of experience will help him overcome it. Love her or hate her, she is a known quantity, and he is not.)
- He specifically said there would be a few spots at the table for corporate interests. Yuck. (I know it isn't practical for anyone to expect a true and total disentanglement of corporations and government. But when you're negotiating, you don't start at the middle. You start at the outer limits and move inward toward each other. Edwards wanted to start at the outer limits. Obama is already in the middle, it seems, which will move him even closer to the corporate-government orgy when the time comes to negotiate a breakup. If the time ever comes when Obama feels he can break them up. Can he? Will he?)
- Fire in the belly – Obama seems very smooth, very polished. I confess, some of what appealed to me about Edwards was his everyman-ness and yes, his anger. I don't see a whole lot of emotion in Obama, for all that his speeches are wonders of the speechmaking world. I don't want a reckless, loose-cannon candidate who cannot control his emotions and anger, but I don't get the sense of real passion from Obama that I did from Edwards. Is it there, or will he be the consummate politician (in the less-positive sense of the word)?
- The unity – it still bothers me. I don't think the political atmosphere is going to become any less partisan and toxic, because the Republicans won't let it. Collegial bipartisanship has worked against Democrats in Congress, and it resulted in a lot of triangulation and sacrifice of progressive achievements the last time we had a Democratic president. I worry about this. I don't want pretty talk about bipartisanship. I'm not sure I even want bipartisanship at all from a Democratic president. Uniting, not dividing? Hasn't worked out so well. I want a president who will fight for progressive ideals, stepping on the necks of the Republicans, if necessary, in order to reach those goals – in much the same way Bush has done for his party. Will Obama do that for us?
So. Help me, Clintonites and Obamaniacs, or whatever names you prefer to go by. Both candidates have pros and cons in my book, but I really don't know enough about either. Both have an equal chance to become my candidate. Who should I pick?
Tell me what you love about your candidate. What are his or her platforms and specific plans to undo some of the last seven years? I'm not looking for slogans like "change" or "hope" or "experience" - I'm looking to gnaw some meat off the bone, especially the nine bones that are my pet issues. What makes you really excited about your candidate? What can you tell me about your chosen candidate that will make me as excited about him or her as I have been about Edwards?
One note: please don't denigrate another candidate in describing your own. Positivity matters to me, both in my candidates and in the way their supporters go about supporting them. I'm not asking these questions to start a pie fight, and I'll be way turned off about any candidate whose supporters make a pie fight out of an honest question about why I should support Candidate X. I don't mind hearing civil (and factual) comparisons and contrasts of Obama and Clinton, but I will mind very much if those comparisons become insults and veer off into Dem-attacking-Dem territory, because, as we've all seen, that just ain't fitting.
Thanks in advance to each of you willing to tell me about your candidate!