I don’t trust myself in terms of judging public figures. Hillary and McCain seem like cynical political animals to me (for reasons I won’t get into here), but Obama comes across as honest and sincere. The thing is, a truly gifted politician can probably come across as anything he feels like. To his credit, he hasn’t really gone negative in his campaign, and he has been one of the least partisan figures to emerge recently. He already has my vote, simply because I don’t like the alternatives.
But does he actually value the ideals he publicly espouses, or is he just doing whatever he thinks will get him the presidency? Also, is there any sign of corruption on the man?
Does he actually value the idelas he espouses? I certainly hope so.
Is there any sign of corruption in the man? Well his opponants have but one thing to point to. Rezko and Obama’s dealing with a corrupt man. If you look at what actually happened, you’ll see Obama did nothing illegal, and his ties to the man were not exactly strong buddy, buddy back room ties…more a business deal that Obama should have thought better of. And did after the fact.
The Rezko BS has been played out, and there has not been anything else of much substance against the man (Obama). That may be becasue he is young, or it may be because he sticks to his guns when it comes to not making dodgy deals.
Either way, both Hillary and McCain have been around longer and have more dirt in their basements. And I’ll take the Pepsi Challenge with Obama and any other candidate anytime!
One way to determine if a candidate actually values the ideals he publicly espouses is to look at his record. If you’re wondering what he will do, look at what he has done.
This 1 page pdf document outlines the bills he introduced while in the Illinois State Legislature. In a nutshell, those include: [ul][li]233 regarding healthcare reform[/li][li]125 on poverty and public assistance[/li][li]112 crime fighting bills[/li][li]97 economic bills[/li][li]62 education reform bills[/li][li]60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills[/li][li]21 ethics reform bills[/li][li]20 environmental bills[/li][li]15 gun control bills[/li][li]6 veterans affairs bills and many others [/ul] We also have his current term as United States Senator to look to.[/li]
In his first year in the U.S. Senate, he authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427. These include: [ul][li]The Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006 (became law)[/li][li]The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act, (became law)[/li][li]The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, (passed the Senate)[/li][li]The 2007 Government Ethics Bill, (became law)[/li][*]The Protection Against Excessive Executive Compensation Bill, (In committee), and many more.[/ul] So yes, I’m pretty confident in saying he actually values the ideals he publicly espouses. Thanks for asking about this!
You might add his relationship with Exelon, which some have pointed to as an accomplishment in the area of nuclear safety. Unfortunately, the bill he claimed to have passed did not, even after watering down into voluntary-reporting meaninglessness - following a $227K contribution from Exelon. Two of their top officials are now among his top fundraisers.
You’re right about Rezko, though.
Is it also your belief that Obama would have just as much dirt in his basement after a similar number of years.
Of course anything I’d say to that question would be conjecture, but if I were to answer that question right now I’d say no, I don’t think he’d have the same types of dirt in his basement as Clinton or McCain. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the man can walk on water no matter how much I support him and campaign for him. I’m not blindly supporting the guy because he’s a wonderful orator either. I look at his record and I see him as someone who can inspire and unite people - and he’s been doing that for years, before any presidential bid.
McCain actually inspired me years ago when he ran, I liked the cool talking POW from AZ.
Yes … she’s inspired *confidence * in me. Confidence that she knows how to play the game effectively and will use that ability to do some things we desperately need done. The job does require some knife-fighting skills, and I do think she has more of those than Obama.
I see pretty much the same ability in McCain, except that he’d use it for too many things we desperately need *not * to do.
When Barack Obama graduated Magna cum Laude from Harvard Law School, he was showered with high paying offers from prestigious law firms and a Supreme Court clerkship. Obama turned it all down because he had made a commitment to himself to return to Chicago and advocate for the poor. He wanted to be a community organizer. He said in his autobiography that he had trouble getting the kind of job he wanted at first and took "more “conventional work” to pay off student loans. He felt ambivalent about it, however. From his autobiography:
After a year, he finally got a job as a community organizer for $10K a year.
When he first left Harvard, he could have written his own ticket for anything he wanted to do. Law firms were slobbering to get the first black president of the Harvard law Review in their stables (I’m sure that getting the trophy Black played into their enthusiam), but he said no to the money and prestige in order to become a community organizer and civil rights lawyer for the disenfranchised instead. If that’s not idealism, I don’t know what is.
You see that is what this democratic society allows us to feel. Equally supportive for two different people. ElvisL1ves you see me writing what I write about Barack and getting behind the figure because he is to me the embodiment of what I would like to see in a president. As you can see millions of people agree with me across the country, and people are writing from every corner of this country that they are inspired and energized over his candidacy.
On the same token - though a decidedly different demographic - millions of people are with you, and are inspired by Hillary Clinton - her accomplishments, her bounding over the norm and runnig for the highest position in the land. I can’t argue that she is not worth the presidency because I’d be lying and making things up. But I can and will stand by who I believe has an equal right to that highest office in the land, and will continue - as I hope you do too - to write about and back my candidate.
And of course, I agree whole heartedly with Diogenes. Well written.
I suppose it would be pretty far-fetched for this all to be a grand master plot to attain high political office… or would it?
I knew he had done community work before, but I didn’t realize the extent of what he passed up on. It’s a nice story. Are there any credible arguments against this narrative of events?
To be honest, Obama seems almost too good to be true. The Exelon/nuclear bill looks slightly shady (and the closest to him lying that I know about), but if that’s the worst that can be brought against the man, well… damn.
Phlosphr, well put. I’ll be quite happy if Obama wins the nomination and will support him as strongly as I would have supported Clinton, and I’m sure the reverse is true for you.
I’m far happier, actually, that we have so many good, devoted, capable public servants to pick from, that their very identities represent America, and that we have the chance to stop worrying about how far we’ve regressed. We’re as close to reaching democracy’s highest ideals of public service as we have ever been.
Interestingly I heard a US political commentator talking on Australian radio last week, I didn’t catch his name, and he was talking about how much the candidates motives were coloured by the slant the media took. His example was that Barack Obama is seen as an idealist for going to Chicago, where within 4 years he had a nice middle class life and an easy run into politics, rather than going back to Hawaii.
And he said that Clinton is seen as a cynical opportunist although she gave up a law career at least as promising as Obama’s to go and marry Bill when he was just a failed political candidate with no great prospects.
I love that article. It is seemingly written by the most naive and prude Times reporter in history, suggesting that if Obama was able to retain a normal life *and *smoke pot, then he must have been lying about one or the other. As if the rest of his colleagues on staff at the Times didn’t also maintain normal successful lives and smoke pot–if they can handle the balance, I’m pretty sure a high school kid can cut it.
Interesting article. It kind of gives the impression that he was basically kind of a square who smoked pot a few times to fit in and that it seemed like a bigger deal to him than to everybody else. In his mind, he’s taking a hit off the bowl and passing it on and thinking, Man, this is bad. I’m doing drugs. I’m into the drug scene. This is so heavy.
Meanwhile everyone else is thinking he’s kind of a lightweight and a nerd (even though from everything I’ve read, the people he knew in college all universally appear to have liked him).
I’ve known guys like that. They’ll try taking a hit off the bong but it all seems so much more serious and melodramatic to them than it does to everyone else.
[QUOTE=Shayna]
One way to determine if a candidate actually values the ideals he publicly espouses is to look at his record. If you’re wondering what he will do, look at what he has done.
This 1 page pdf document outlines the bills he introduced while in the Illinois State Legislature. In a nutshell, those include: [ul][li]233 regarding healthcare reform[/li][li]125 on poverty and public assistance[/li][li]112 crime fighting bills[/li][li]97 economic bills[/li][li]62 education reform bills[/li][li]60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills[/li][li]21 ethics reform bills[/li][li]20 environmental bills[/li][li]15 gun control bills[/li][li]6 veterans affairs bills and many others [/ul] We also have his current term as United States Senator to look to.[/li]
In his first year in the U.S. Senate, he authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427. These include: [ul][li]The Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006 (became law)[/li][li]The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act, (became law)[/li][li]The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, (passed the Senate)[/li][li]The 2007 Government Ethics Bill, (became law)[/li][li]The Protection Against Excessive Executive Compensation Bill, (In committee), and many more.[/ul] So yes, I’m pretty confident in saying he actually values the ideals he publicly espouses. Thanks for asking about this![/li][/QUOTE]
There is a difference between introducing and co-sponsoring. With that said, it seems like he should at least get SOME credit for being an Illinois senator to offset the experience advantage that Hillary has from being First Lady.
With that said, the high turnout in the Democratic primary isn’t just an Obama phenomenon. Hillary has drawn as many votes as Obama in the primary and either of them blows away the draw of any of the Republican candidates.
First year attorneys at top paying law firms (and the Editor in Chief of Harvard Law Review would have their pick no matter the color of their skin) have starting salaries of $160K/year (I believe Obama makes about that much as a senator). Their bonuses can run in excess of their base salary at some firms (in rare cases it can reach a million dollars), but this is rare. In any event, he turned down some pretty big money to be a community organizer.
