On the issues

So my buddy Marty has been hammering me about why I'm voting for Barack Obama and baiting me to lay down my stance on the issues.

Marty calls himself a pure issues voter and he's voting for McCain. He says all politicians are jerks so he just votes the issues. He calls Obama's tax and health care policies "socialism." He thinks Obama will take away his guns. He thinks McCain will have good foreign policy because he's had more experience. He also thinks Sarah Palin is sexy.

I like it that Marty challenges me. And since he has baited me into this...I am publishing it here too. So blame him for the long post!

The leading issues that lead me to vote for Obama are:

#1 The Deficit, Taxes and the Economy

This is a chart that shows what happens when Republicans take the White House. Look closely. The only time the deficit headed in the right direction was during the Clinton years. Look even closer. The deficit is heading farther up than you've ever seen in your life - or any lifetime for that matter. Classic Republican spending - let the rich profit and devastate future generations.

Obama will stop the insanity, move the deficit downward and introduce fiscal responsibility.

John McCain wants to introduce giant tax cuts, most of which will go to the wealthiest corporations. This will further reduce the revenue coming into the federal government and drive up the deficit and it will do nothing to help the middle class, the backbone of stability for the American economy.

Obama's tax plan will cut taxes for those that need it (small businesses and the middle class) and reasonably tax the wealthiest individuals and corporations who have plenty to spare. Under McCain the rich will continue to get scandalously richer and the middle class will suffer and America will be far less secure.

#2 Iraq

McCain voted to go into Iraq and to give the president unprecedented power without oversight while Obama had better judgement and stood against the war right from the beginning.

Obama will be as careful and purposeful at getting out of Iraq as McCain/Bush were at recklessly and carelessly going in.

Iraq continues to suck billions and billions from our country and drive up the insanely irresponsible Republican spending spree. We can't afford Iraq and it makes us less secure and less able to respond to other real threats.


#3 Energy & Environment:

McCain is all in for nuclear power - 45 plants by 2030 and 55 more after that. Obama is open to it as a low carbon source of power but has reasonable concerns.

This one is classic Republican logic. We still have no plan for waste disposal - where are we going to put that radioactive stuff? I know! Just like the deficit, let's leave it to our children to worry about!

Drill baby drill? I'm all for increased US oil production, but we can't just open it wide open to big oil speculators - we need oversight and regulation.

Keep in mind that if we drill all the oil out of Alaska and all the oil offshore and strip mine all the coal out of every last place in the US we won't solve the energy crisis. Obama has a plan to invest aggressively in alternative energy and not to just pay lip service to it.

Just like when JFK set a goal for going to the moon, Obama will set energy and environmental goals and will provide incentives and set federal standards and provide the solid leadership to get us there.

#4 Abortion:

Obama all the way. It's a very private matter - we cannot legislate against it. Consistently a majority of Americans say they would not outlaw abortion and the reality is that if they ever really did succeed in outlawing it, there would be a revolt. Abortion is a divisive issue and that's why the right wing trots it out. They don't want us to come together as a nation, because we're weaker and more distracted if we're divided. If someone is anti-abortion my radar goes off.

Those are my top issues. But abortion brings me to my other main reason for voting for Obama...

McCain himself.

Did you know that McCain is pro-choice? Because he is...I mean, he was...until he became the nominee and suddenly reversed his position on a core issue.

I liked McCain a lot better before he took his party's nomination. That's when he rolled over and adopted the politics of fear and division that have been so successful for the Republicans and so disastrous for our country.

I had respect for McCain when he was one of the few who stood up and said that the Swiftboat Veteran's smear campaign against John Kerry was wrong. But as the nominee, he has now switched right over. He's hired the same company that produced the Swiftboat smear ads to create smear ads against Obama.

If naming a VP is the first presidential decision a nominee makes, he failed spectacularly when he chose Sarah Palin. McCain is 72 years old. No one, not even top thinkers of the Republican party, believes Sarah Palin should be President. Why was Sarah Palin picked? Because the party strategists picked her as the most divisive choice - this is pure Karl Rove...and McCain, who was supposed to be different, just rolled over.

What happened to him? I remember thinking early during the primaries that the only Republican campaigning that I could handle as president was John McCain.

But now that he got the nomination against all the odds...he has changed. Who can I trust him to be when he is in office? And if he feels so strongly about the issues and values why would he kowtow to the Republican leadership?

I don't trust him.

I trust Obama to be steady and true to what he believes in. And I like his coolness under pressure. McCain's infamous temper and impetuous decision making worries me.

So here I am, off the issues...and into the politics of personality.

Why? Because as much as Marty wants to make choosing a leader some kind of pure issue thing…it isn't. Nothing is like that with human beings.

Look at the stock market and the business landscape…it is a barometer for collective human emotion. A particular person gets appointed to a post and there is a palatable reaction in the marketplace. A manager is replaced in a company and everything changes. A CEO is dumped and it's a different company for good or bad. The administration changes and Washington, DC utterly changes. Why?

Because people matter - who they are and what they believe in and how they manage and how they choose to inform themselves and who they choose to surround themselves with matters...A LOT.

I believe Obama is a natural leader and someone that brings people together and sets the tone I want.

And one more thing. I will choose Obama because we need to look forward and get beyond the pitfalls of the last generation. Here is a good one to read on that point and to sum it all up...

Goodbye to all the that: Why Obama Matters