For most of my life I have been a staunch conservative, not sure really when that started, I just always was. It was the way of things. However, after 7 years of a conservative presidency, a quagmire of a war, an economy in tatters and on the way down, it is clear that conservative policies are simply wrong.
If the "free market" big business policies of Republicans worked, why are millions of us losing our homes and millions more on the edge? If tax cuts for the rich were to herald in an era of unpresidented prosperity, why are there records of numbers of people on food stamps? We've seen tort reform, where is the health care for the 50+ million people who don't have insurance?
It's clear that the ideas have simply failed, which is largely why I (and conservatives and right-wingers) were so vicious. When you don't have anything else to stand on, you attack and claw away. But eventually (hopefully) you realize that you are fighting for a failed idea. And that's why I've jettisoned conservatism, the Republican party and I'm going for Obama.
The Obama campaign, more than anything, is a voice to the disenchanted that things have to change. Republicans, despite the rhetoric, have sold us out to the rich. Values voters are all about the "right" thing, as long as its "their" rights. Yet, not even a few weeks can go by without a Bush cabinet member being implicated in corruption, more Republican congressmen found on the take, and the biggest proponents of "social values" being exposed as notorious perverts. Enough is enough; we need change. I cannot associate with the Republican party anymore. I'm not leaving them, they have left me and millions others poorer in their wake.
The childish partisanship (which I had once ashmadely participated in) that has been fostered by Bush has brought about bitter divisions that have left America weaker within than we ever have been. A senseless war has left us weaker abroad. A "go-it-alone" foreign policy has left us isolated with no friends. No that we need foreign investment to prop up our economy, we are left with no one willing to help us except George Bush's Saudi oil buddies.
Limited government has been shown for what it really is, allow big corporations to run roughshod over workers, the environment and our legal system. When banks are on the verge of falling over now, it is the shareholders not the average consumer that gets a bailout. It's no wonder the gap between the rich and poor is accelerating so rapidly... at every chance this government simply takes more from us and gives it to them.
I plan to vote for Obama in November (as soon as Hillary's slash-and-burn campaign of self destruction ends) so we have the chance to turn America around and make the American Dream possible again.