Forget the pundits - when his website says it it must be so.
Welcome to the next vice president of the United States.
Obama Chooses Biden - See Website
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What does this say about President Obama
I've officially been a community organizer for one year. This has corresponded to the rise of an amazing phenomenon: the 2008 Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama.
Now, we know who he's picked as his running mate: Joe Biden. The news was leaked, and their website confirmed it at about 3 AM Eastern time.
I'm profoundly unsurprised. This follows in the path of most of Senator Obama's decisions - up the middle, slightly to the left.
Joe Biden - recently reliable labor vote, decent but not perfect on women's control of their bodies, decent environmental vote, hawkish on foreign policy and homeland security. They say he's wild in front of cameras - a maverick? and he chaired the committees that both sank Bork, but allowed Clarence Thomas. Voted for NAFTA. Now does better on trade.
Senator Obama is a moderate Democrat who wants to win and wants to change some things for the better, and sees a coalition that he can organize to get him there. He isn't a socialist, but he might move on socialized medicine. He's not a pacifist, but he probably will get us out of Iraq before he leaves office. I worry about gay rights and choice, somewhat, and he could well invade somewhere else for some reason.
He will carry forward the policies of 'imperialist America' but will be much closer to the multilateral western-coalition model. Corporate America will be powerful, but I think less powerful than before. The police state Bush erected will be somewhat dismantled (but the FISA stance, and the Biden choice worry me on this point)
Community organizing is about winning real battles for real people. This sometimes means that you take what you can get, you sometimes make decisions that people might think are selling out. Phrases like 'the perfect not the enemy of the good' get tossed around. Sometimes you might sell out the future to get the now. Because, say the organizers, you take now to the bank.
So, too, community organizing teaches you about power; and the presidency is only one power in this system of ours. Corporations have scads of power, and my feeling is that the USA under President Obama will be easier to organize in, to reduce the power of corporations, than under Bush.
I've got a bet with a Green Party friend of mine - that President Obama will be better than President Clinton (Bill, that is). I think he will be. (We both think President Clinton was a corporate sellout, if not the creepy theo-fascist that the Bush Borg has been.)
Overall, I see a vast difference between McCain and Obama. Obama is the first step, and there will need to be many more. And it's gonna get crazy between now and November!