Why We Need Obama: Independents

Showing posts with label Independents. Show all posts

Monday, November 3, 2008

Quote of the Day: Explaining Obamacons

A reader at the Daily Dish has a perfect encapsulation of why I consider myself an Obamacon (well, maybe an Obamatarian):

I was with a woman this week who is in her sixties. She told me that she has voted Republican her entire life and this year she is voting for Obama. Her reason; John McCain is too erratic and too much of a hot head and Sarah Palin is completely unqualified. I think many "Obamacons" simply love this country more than they do their ideology.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Brilliant Quote of the Day

This is one of the best quotes I've read in a really long time. Read the whole article.

"Let me offer what is evidently a radical argument — identifying the candidate that best approximates your ideological beliefs is not sufficient reason to cast a presidential vote on his behalf. Yes, a conservative is naturally going to weigh a candidate’s adherence to conservatism very heavily, but not as an end in itself. The ultimate goal is to choose the candidate whose election most benefits the country, not the candidate whose beliefs most closely reflect your own." -- Conor Friedsdorf

Monday, October 27, 2008

Top 10 Reasons for Conservatives to Vote Obama

A top-notch Top-10 list from the Daily Dish on why conservatives should vote for Obama:

10. A body blow to racial identity politics. An end to the era of Jesse Jackson in black America.

9. Less debt. Yes, Obama will raise taxes on those earning over a quarter of a million. And he will spend on healthcare, Iraq, Afghanistan and the environment. But so will McCain. He plans more spending on health, the environment and won't touch defense of entitlements. And his refusal to touch taxes means an extra $4 trillion in debt over the massive increase presided over by Bush. And the CBO estimates that McCain's plans will add more to the debt over four years than Obama's. Fiscal conservatives have a clear choice.

8. A return to realism and prudence in foreign policy. Obama has consistently cited the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush as his inspiration. McCain's knee-jerk reaction to the Georgian conflict, his commitment to stay in Iraq indefinitely, and his brinksmanship over Iran's nuclear ambitions make him a far riskier choice for conservatives. The choice between Obama and McCain is like the choice between George H.W. Bush's first term and George W.'s.

7. An ability to understand the difference between listening to generals and delegating foreign policy to them.

6. Temperament. Obama has the coolest, calmest demeanor of any president since Eisenhower. Conservatism values that kind of constancy, especially cmopared with the hot-headed, irrational impulsiveness of McCain.

5. Faith. Obama's fusion of Christianity and reason, his non-fundamentalist faith, is a critical bridge between the new atheism and the new Christianism.
4. A truce in the culture war. Obama takes us past the debilitating boomer warfare that has raged since the 1960s. Nothing has distorted our politics so gravely; nothing has made a rational politics more elusive.

3. Two words: President Palin.

2. Conservative reform. Until conservatism can get a distance from the big-spending, privacy-busting, debt-ridden, crony-laden, fundamentalist, intolerant, incompetent and arrogant faux conservatism of the Bush-Cheney years, it will never regain a coherent message to actually govern this country again. The survival of conservatism requires a temporary eclipse of today's Republicanism. Losing would be the best thing to happen to conservatism since 1964. Back then, conservatives lost in a landslide for the right reasons. Now, Republicans are losing in a landslide for the wrong reasons.

1. The War Against Islamist terror. The strategy deployed by Bush and Cheney has failed. It has failed to destroy al Qaeda, except in a country, Iraq, where their presence was minimal before the US invasion. It has failed to bring any of the terrorists to justice, instead creating the excresence of Gitmo, torture, secret sites, and the collapse of America's reputation abroad. It has empowered Iran, allowed al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan, made the next vast generation of Muslims loathe America, and imperiled our alliances. We need smarter leadership of the war: balancing force with diplomacy, hard power with better p.r., deploying strategy rather than mere tactics, and self-confidence rather than a bunker mentality.

Those conservatives who remain convinced, as I do, that Islamist terror remains the greatest threat to the West cannot risk a perpetuation of the failed Manichean worldview of the past eight years, and cannot risk the possibility of McCain making rash decisions in the middle of a potentially catastrophic global conflict. If you are serious about the war on terror and believe it is a war we have to win, the only serious candidate is Barack Obama.

Republican Rep. Larry Pressler Endorses Obama

The flood of Obamacons continues:

Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), who was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in the United States Senate, is the latest Republican to back Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Politico learned Sunday.

Pressler, who said that in addition to casting an absentee ballot for Obama he'd donated $500 to the Illinois senator's campaign, cited the Democrat's response to the financial crisis as the primary reason for his decision.

Steve Benen notes something very important about the endorsement:

Pressler's explanation for why he dumped McCain for Obama is the part that stood out for me. For weeks, the pundits have noted that the financial crisis has seriously undermined the McCain campaign. That's true, but it overlooks why -- McCain has handled the crisis really badly. It's not enough to simply note that a focus on the economy is necessarily good news for Obama; McCain had a chance to deal with this crisis effectively and he blew it.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Quote of the Year: Case for Obama

This is from last year but Andrew Sullivan's early case for Obama is as prescient and wise as ever:

If you believe that America’s current crisis is not a deep one ... if you believe that today’s ideological polarization is not dangerous, and that what appears dark today is an illusion fostered by the lingering trauma of the Bush presidency, then the argument for Obama is not that strong ...

But if you sense, as I do, that greater danger lies ahead, and that our divisions and recent history have combined to make the American polity and constitutional order increasingly vulnerable, then the calculus of risk changes. Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution. Close-up in this election campaign, Obama is unlikely. From a distance, he is necessary. At a time when America’s estrangement from the world risks tipping into dangerous imbalance, when a country at war with lethal enemies is also increasingly at war with itself, when humankind’s spiritual yearnings veer between an excess of certainty and an inability to believe anything at all, and when sectarian and racial divides seem as intractable as ever, a man who is a bridge between these worlds may be indispensable.

Friday, October 24, 2008

McCain Adviser Charles Fried Votes for Obama

CURRENT McCain adviser and staunch conservative Charles Fried endorsed Obama today and said that he voted for him by absentee ballot. Ouch, kinda close to home for Sen. McCain...

Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.

This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision "is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."

Fried is exceptionally thoughtful and principled; his vote for Obama is especially noteworthy.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Republican Former Minn. Governor Endorses Obama

The flood of Obamacons continues unabated:

Arne Carlson, a former Republican governor in Minnesota, has endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Carlson said Thursday that the Illinois senator's stances on the Iraq war, the economy and green energy goals won him over. Carlson, who served from 1991 to 1998, also cited recent comments by GOP Congresswoman Michele Bachmann questioning whether politicians have "pro-America or anti-America views."

"Regardless of our party, regardless of our partisan inclinations, there is no interest more compelling than the interest in the well-being of the United States," Carlson said at a gathering of Obama supporters at the state Capitol.

Carlson added, "He has laid out for this nation a vision for a national purpose."

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Conservative Wick Allison Supports Obama

This is pretty remarkable. Conservative writer, former board member and publisher of the ultra-conservative National Review Wick Allison today wrote an article endorsing Obama:

Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth.
This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse...
“Every great cause,” Eric Hoffer wrote, “begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama.

Sullivan: The Recklessness of John McCain

Ok, so I have to admit it. I am little bit in love with Andrew Sullivan. Beyond his dashing bald pate and bearish good looks, he has a razor-sharp wit and an incisive insight into the American electoral process that, unfortunately, can only seem to come from a commentator not of original American birth. His latest piece in the Times Online only makes me more enamored:

What we have learned about John McCain from his selection of Sarah Palin is that he is as impulsive and reckless a decision-maker as George W. Bush...

So last week, McCain picked someone he had only met once before. I repeat: he picked someone he had only met once before. His vetting chief sat Palin down for a face-to-face interview the Wednesday before last. It's very hard to overstate how nutty and irresponsible this is. Would any corporate chieftain pick a number two on those grounds and not be dismissed by his board for recklessness?...

Who does John McCain think he's kidding? And what on earth was he thinking? This was a rash, impulsive, reckless pick. We have no idea where it's headed - and i wouldn't hazard a wild guess what we will have found out about Palin in a week's time. Maybe it will win some votes from evangelicals...

If you thought a president who went to war on flawed intelligence with no plan for the aftermath was reckless, then I have news for you. You haven't seen anything yet. Imagine the kind of decision-making McCain has just demonstrated applied to life-and-death decisions with respect to Iran and Russia.

Yes, you have permission to be afraid.

Read the Whole Article Here

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Musings on Giuliani and the Lunatic Fringe

I thought you might like to read my latest email in a chain with an independent reader from NYC who likes Giuliani:

I've always been an independent myself and I appreciate your realization that Bush has been an incompetent abomination. However, on the Guiliani side of things, I grant you that he did good things as mayor and it was nice to have him around for 9/11. However, he has proven himself over the years to be a 200% Bush/Rove-style culture war nutjob.

If you grant that Bush was a phenomenal disaster, you have to ask yourself: 'Why?'. Bush is obviously a man of marginal intelligence and enormous suggestibility. He surrounded himself with right-wing religious fanatics and stratospherically incompetent neoconservative ideologues. Bush had something to do with the disaster of the last 8 years but, really, in the final analysis, it was the people who surrounded him and the ideology they got him to go along with that created the mess we're in.

What does it then tell you that people like Romney, Giuliani and McCain have taken up all of the same lying, craven, lunatic characters from the Bush administration to craft their campaigns and worldview? If it was bad for Bush, it would be doubly bad for someone with half a brain and a more extreme version of the same ideology to be elected on the same lunatic fringe platform.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Jim Leach - Republican Speech at Democratic Convention

I agree with Steve Benen; former Republican Rep. Jim Leach got a surprisingly small amount of coverage yesterday for his speech at the Democratic Convention. He definitely got less coverage than Liebertraitor is expected to get. I thought his speech was great:

As a Republican, I stand before you with deep respect for the history and traditions of my political party. But it is clear to all Americans that something is out of kilter in our great republic.... Seldom has the case for an inspiring new political ethic been more compelling. And seldom has an emerging leader so matched the needs of the moment.... I stand before you proud of my party's contributions to American history but, as a citizen, proud as well of the good judgment of good people in this good party, in nominating a transcending candidate, an individual whom I am convinced will recapture the American dream and be a truly great president: the senator from Abraham Lincoln's state -- Barack Obama.... This is not a time for politics as usual.... Obama will recapture the American dream and be a truly great president.

Update - Here's the video:

Friday, August 15, 2008

Wisdom from President Eisenhower for Today

Andrew Sullivan notes this poignant quote from President Dwight Eisenhower (of course, just a raving hippie peacenik):

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. ... We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

Now I can more clearly see why his granddaughter, lifelong Republican Susan Eisenhower, endorsed Obama back in February:

Forty-seven years ago, my grandfather Dwight D. Eisenhower bid farewell to a nation he had served for more than five decades. In his televised address, Ike famously coined the term "military-industrial complex," and he offered advice that is still relevant today. "As we peer into society's future," he said, we "must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

Thursday, July 10, 2008

News Flash: Obama is Complex

The last couple of weeks have really had me scratching my head. I always harbored a worry that the elongated primary contest would somehow drill into the liberal base the notion that Obama was somehow the Liberal Messiah they have been waiting for. For some, this unfortunate notion has obviously taken root.

For the rest of us who actually understood that Obama is a complex person and that to "unify" us he would need to sometimes take unpopular non-liberal positions, the following snip from a great post by Lawrence Lessig is a must-read:

Obama is no (in the 1970s sense) "liberal": There are many who are upset by this who believe this (and other recent moves) shows Obama "moving to the center." People who make this argument signal they don't know squat about which they speak.

You can't read Obama's books, watch how he behaved in the Illinois Senate, and watched how he voted in the US Senate, and believe he is a Bernie Sanders liberal. He is not now, and nor has ever been. That's not to say there aren't issues on which he takes a liberal position. It is to say that the mix of views he actually has and has had doesn't map on a 1970s spectrum of liberals to conservative.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Obama Turning Red States Blue

From the Purple State Blog:

Political Insider has a series of new polls showing Senator Obama pulling close or ahead in 10 Bush states:

Montana: Bush won by 11 points in 2004, Obama leading McCain by 5 points
Colorado: Bush +4, Obama +5
Virginia: Bush +8, Obama +2
New Mexico: Bush +1, Obama +3
Florida: Bush +5, Obama +2
Indiana: Bush +20, Obama +1
Georgia: Bush +16, McCain +1
Mississippi: Bush +20, McCain +4
Alaska: Bush +26, McCain +4
North Carolina: Bush +13, McCain +4

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Nader Siphons From McCain Because of Clinton Supporters?

I was digging through the new Bloomberg/LA Times poll today and had an interesting thought based on the following observation in the story:

On a four-man ballot including independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain ... 48% to 33%.

Nader ... and Barr ... both appear to siphon more votes from McCain than they do from Obama. When Nader and Barr are added to the ballot, they draw most of their support from voters who said they would otherwise vote for the Republican.

Now, factor this in to the following with respect to the head-to-head match-up between McCain and Obama:

The great majority of Clinton voters have transferred their allegiance to Obama, the poll found. Only 11% of Clinton voters have defected to McCain.

Based on these numbers, I wonder if the addition of Nader to the mix is siphoning off a large chunk of the 11% of angry Clinton voters that might otherwise choose to support McCain as a second choice in a protest vote resulting from Clinton not getting the nomination.

After all, you'd hope that those 11% would be rational enough to realize that McCain would be disastrous for most of the policy positions that Hillary Clinton supports and that Nader would be much closer to Clinton that McCain would be (at least on most issues).

Could it be possible that in this kind of calculus, Nader could actually be worse for McCain than for Obama?

Hmm...

Monday, June 23, 2008

McCain/Bush Try to Claim Credit for GI Bill

This is really beyond the pale. Over the last few months we kept hearing statements like the following from Bush and McCain opposing the recently passed bipartisan enhancements to the GI Bill:

McCain: “I want to make sure that we have incentives for people to remain in the military as well as for people to join the military.”

Bush administration: “The last thing we want to do is provide a benefit — or the last thing we want to do is create a situation in which we are losing our men and women who we have worked so hard to train.”

We're all too familiar with Bush's strategy of opposing popular legislation only to do a 180 when it passes and claim credit for it (think of the creation of the 9/11 commission).

Now McCain shows himself to be just as craven as Bush:

McCain: That has always been my primary concern with respect to the Webb bill. … With the addition of the transferability provisions sought by Senators Graham, Burr, myself and others to give service members the right to transfer earned G.I. Bill benefits to spouses and children, we will have achieved in offering vastly improved educational benefit.

Bush: Throughout the past five months, President Bush and members of his Administration have worked hard to ensure that an expansion of GI benefits includes transferability. … The President is pleased that Congress answered his call.

As noted on Think Progress:

Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — the two most vocal opponents of Webb’s bill — are trying to take credit for it. They are claiming that they always supported the generous benefits — their main concern was just ensuring the benefits’ transferability.

We need to call them out on the BS that this really is.

Monday, June 16, 2008

McCain Has a Strange Way of Wooing Clinton Supporters

John McCain has a really strange approach to wooing Clinton supporters.

In his recent "townhall" organized to do just that, he pretty much highlighted all of the reasons why his positions are anathema to many women (and Democrats in general).

Here is the HuffPo article with McCain's own words below:

McCain on Roe v. Wade:

"Roe v. Wade, we obviously will have a disagreement. I think it was a bad decision."

McCain on abortion rights:

"[W]e have to change the culture of America. We have to convince people of our view that the rights of the unborn are as important as the rights of the born."

McCain on medically necessary late-term abortions:

"I am unalterably opposed to partial birth abortion."

McCain on the two or more Supreme Court appointments the next president is likely to make:

"I would find people along the lines of Justice Roberts."

"I wouldn't have selected Justice Ginsberg or Justice Breyer."

"I believe that interpretation of the Constitution, and only that, should be the criteria for Supreme Court justices."

McCain on gay rights and "don't ask, don't tell":

"Don't ask, don't tell: I want to rely on the advice and counsel of our military leaders. As president ... I will ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to go back and review that and other policies to see whether those policies are appropriate, and I do rely on them to a large degree because they're the ones we entrust the leadership of the lives of our young men and women in our military. And I'm sure you may have a disagreement with that policy."

McCain on his own intelligence:

"You don't have to be real smart. I stood fifth from the bottom of my class at the naval academy, which shows in America anything is possible."

McCain's on what makes America great:

"We're the only country in the world that has over time sent our young Americans to shed our most precious asset -- American blood -- in defense of someone else's freedom."

Why would a Clinton supporter want to vote for this guy again?

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Quote of the Day

From the libertarian online mag Reason:

Back in 1980, everyone knew Ronald Reagan was too conservative to win. But when non-conservatives were presented with a conservative who was likable, temperate, and occasionally eloquent, many of them found they could vote for him. What Obama has going for him, more than anything, is a quality of calm and thoughtful gravity, which offers a refreshing contrast to President Bush's inarticulate defensiveness and McCain's stubborn pugnacity.

I disagree with Obama's positions more often than not, but reducing a political leader to the sum of his positions is like judging the value of an artwork by adding up the cost of the canvas and paint. Obama didn't get where he is by being a liberal like any other. He got there by being a liberal like no other.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Dems Love Obama; Reps Ambivalent About McCain

Numbers like this have to send serious shivers down the collective spine of John McCain's staffers:

A new number from the latest Hotline/Diageo poll goes a long way toward dispelling the idea that Barack Obama is leading a seriously divided party. On the contrary, the poll suggests that it's John McCain who has a problem in this regard.

The poll, conducted in the wake of Obama's clinching the nomination and including sampling dates from before Hillary Clinton's final concession, found that 68% of Democratic primary voters were satisfied with Obama as the nominee, with 30% preferring someone else.

By contrast, only 52% of Republican primary voters were satisfied with John McCain as their nominee, with 45% preferring someone else. And this is despite the fact that McCain sewed up his nomination months ago, while Democratic emotions were still raw when this poll was conducted.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Conservatives Ambivalent About McCain

Conservative commentator Bay Buchanan has an interesting piece up today on a site that I refuse to link to, due to the fact that it includes some really distorted articles on Obama and a promotes a misleading Obama "Google Bomb".

Anyway, she is the sister of Republican stalwart Pat Buchanan and a leading conservative voice. Here is what she had to say about McCain and Obama in an article from last week:

John McCain is relevant only in so far as he is not Barack Obama. The Senator from Arizona is incapable of energizing his party, brings no new people to the polls, and has a personality that is best kept under wraps. And while his strong suite [sic] is experience, especially on military matters, it was gained almost entirely in Washington, a city that 80% of Americans now believe has miserably misled and mismanaged the nation.

...

As a candidate Obama is bigger than life. Die-hard liberals are euphoric over his nomination. He is seen as the real thing -- a man who believes what he says and says what he believes. His candidacy has mobilized millions of new voters, held massive rallies, and raised money faster than Federal Reserve can print it. Obama is a gifted candidate who has that intangible quality most candidates only dream about -- he moves voters -- which gives his campaign enormous energy and excitement.

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