This editorial endorsement of Obama really says it all:
Contrary to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan, we believe Barack Obama is more likely to be “ready on Day One” to lead us in a new direction. Because of his experience.
Sure, Clinton has more “experience” of a sort. For one thing, she has 14 more years on earth. How much of this experience is directly applicable to the job of president is, at best, debatable.
We are frankly troubled by her assumption that her husband’s administration and accomplishments were her own. And if her equation holds, that the first spouse is an equal partner in the administration, then the reappearance of Bill Clinton in the White House is a prospect we have a hard time reconciling with the work that needs to be done.
THERE IS a way to match Clinton’s and Obama’s performances on a relatively equal playing field: their campaigns.
A candidate’s campaign may be the best indicator of how she or he will govern. If so, an Obama administration would be well-managed, inclusive and astonishingly broad-based. It would make good use of technology and communicate a message of unity and, yes, hope.
It would not be content with eking out slim victories by playing to the narrow interests of the swing voters of the moment while leaving the rest of the country as deeply divided as ever. Instead, an Obama administration would seek to expand the number of Americans who believe that they have a personal stake in our collective future – and that they have the power to change things.
It would motivate them to hold their representatives accountable for making it happen. That is, after all, the only way to get us out of Iraq, to address global warming, to make us energy-independent. It’s the only way to resist the forces arrayed against providing universal health care, rebuilding our infrastructure and returning our schools to world-class status. It’s the only way to give our children the means to compete with children in other parts of the world who are healthier, better-educated and have more opportunities than many of our own.
Yes. This. Accountability. I am willing to put aside the many differences I have with Clinton and Obama for that alone. Accountability. Responsibility. I simply can not take four more years of “No one could have predicted” bullshit. I can not take four more years of debating the merits of abstinence only or stem cell bullshit while Baghdad burns and the housing market melts down.
Accountability. Priorities. Responsibility. I don’t agree with Obama or Hillary on a lot of things, but they are issues about which I don’t agree with most Democrats (and yes, I am aware this sentence sucks but I am too lazy to rewrite it). But when I look at the two campaigns, only one looks like it will end the crap we have endured for the past eight years, while the other looks content to keep serving it up to us.