It came in the mail on Tuesday. The invitation to my high reunion. Lumberton Senior High's class of '98 will be living it up at the Black Water grill on June 21. Make your calendars. As for me though, I might just skip it.
First, there's the price. It's fifty-five dollars, which seems like a little much to me. I think the homecoming queen might be skimming a bit off the top (just kidding, Kelly). I'm not so destitute that I can't afford it, but when you factor in the forty bucks it'll cost me to drive there and back, it's a lot of money to pay for one meal and some cocktails I won't drink.
Secondly, there's my current life situation. Everybody wants to be doing something cool by their reunion and I like my current life for the most part, but it's not exactly impressive. "I almost got my master's and now I work at a toy store" isn't likely to wow. I like my job a lot some days and I make enough to get by on, but I could have done the same thing I'm doing now at 19 or 20 and I'm 27.
Lastly, there's my classmates. I wasn't exactly popular in high school. I talked to all the popular kids when we had classes together, but I never hung out with any of them outside of school. In fact, the only people I really hung out with at all were other theatre people and friends from church. I certainly don't hold any animosity towards anyone I went to high school with. I didn't dislike many people then and I've never been good at holding a grudge. Thing is, I always figured I'd go to my reunion just to satisfy my curiosity, to find out what everybody's up to. Thanks to the interweb, though, I've already satisfied that curiosity. I'm MySpace or Facebook friends with a good chunk of the people I'd be interested in knowing about. I can see what they're all doing now via the worldwide-superhighway-net and there's no awkward, forced conversation. There's still a few people I'm curious about, but I have no idea if they'll be there or not and I don't know if it's enough to make the whole thing worthwhile. Right now I'm leaning towards no.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
the San Francisco threat
I'm going to talk about other things now, but I did want to add my opinions on the weekend's candidate happenings. The biggest news obviously was Barrack's gaffe in San Francisco. At a fund-raiser there he said, "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Not surpisingly, the Clinton campaign seized on the comments and began painting him as an elitist who's out of touch with the middle-class. She's definitely right that he comes off as elitist sometimes and his comments were extremely condescending, but there's probably some truth to them as well. People without jobs are bitter. The middle and lower classes tend to be more interested in hunting and religion than the rich and many of them are racist. All of those things are true. If someone else had said them, Marilyn Manson perhaps (he of the God, Guns and Government World Tour), they might have even been seen as inciteful. Problem is, they're not something you can say as president. Obama can sit around with his friends smoking cigarettes and talking about how uneducated and racist the poor are all he wants, but he can't make speeches doing the same. True or not, there are some things you're just not allowed to say.
On a side note, I'm not sure which clip I saw today was more disturbing: Hillary talking about the Holy Spirit or Hillary taking shots of crown royal.
On a side note, I'm not sure which clip I saw today was more disturbing: Hillary talking about the Holy Spirit or Hillary taking shots of crown royal.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
a very old man with enormous wings
After a short haitus, it's on to section three. Let's see who's with me still.
Part 3 - John McCain
John McCain's a war hero. We all know that. Pretty much everyone who's not a Moveon.org pseudo-commie, half-insane liberal seems to agree that he's a man of strength and courage who loves his country dearly. He also has a vast amount of experience and more than enough commander in chief credentials. None of that will be enough by itself to win him the nomination, however. Let's take a look at how he stacks up otherwise.
Since its release in 2005, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's Lincoln biography Team of Rivals has gotten a fair amount of press. The main theme of the book is that Lincoln's true political genius came from the way he set up his cabinet. Rather than appointing only men who agreed with him on everything or repaying favors to his cronies, Lincoln selected four of his most bitter rivals as attorney general, secretary of state, secretary of treasury, and secretary of war respectively. Lincoln, according to Goodwin, looked beyond friendships and affiliations and, during a difficult era for our nation, wanted to be advised by the absolute smartest men he could find. I've seen Ms. Goodwin interviewed by both Tim Russert and John Stewart and they both discussed the idea that modern politicians should follow the Lincoln model. One of the problems with the Bush white house, as many people see it, is that he seems to insulate himself from the world and only listen to people who are telling him what he wants to hear. Of the three remaining candidates, I feel like John McCain would be the least likely to do that. Like Bush, he can be stubborn and tenacious on matters of principle, but unlike Bush, he has close friends and allies from both sides of the aisle and he's not afraid to change his position when he comes across new evidence. Many republicans frown at the fact that John McCain has sponsored bills with the Ted Kennedys and Dianne Feinstein's of the world, but I think it's great. If he's elected president, I'm confident that McCain will pick the most knowledgeable people he can find to be his sounding board, whether that means Mitt Romney or Joe Leiberman, Chuck Hagel or Lindsey Graham. But that's a bad thing to some people. According to many conservatives, John McCain is a dirty liberal. On both social and fiscal issues, however, he's solidly conservative. He has a 100% pro life voting record (for a somewhat nuanced explanation of why I think that's a good thing, read this post) and has never voted for a tax increase. So why do hardcore conservatives seem to hate him so much? Well, that's slightly complicated. For one thing, he's never sucked up to the talking heads. The Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world like to think they have their listeners wrapped around their fingers and if their enormous egos aren't placated, then they're quick to turn against the man or woman who slighted them. John McCain has always refused to kowtow to them or apologize for disagreeing. When conservative radio host Bill Cunningham was brought in my Cincinnati republicans to "warm up the crowd" before a McCain rally, he repeatedly used Obama's middle name, Hussein, in an obvious attempt to link him to Islam. As soon as he found out what had been said, McCain immediately repudiated Cunningham's statements and made it clear that that's not the kind of campaign he's running. Cunningham responded angrily to McCain's chastisement and said that he was going to join Ann Coulter in voting for Hillary. Tiffs like that have been occurring throughout McCain's career, so next time you hear some talk radio guy railing against him, remember that he's probably doing so with a built in bias based on some perceived slight against his fraternity.
That's not to say though that the conservatives don't have fair complaints about McCain's policies. There's two main issues on which the far right and John McCain strongly disagree. First, there's immigration. I haven't done intensive research on McCain's immigration views, but here's the gist as I understand it: McCain gave support to a plan that would allow illegal immigrants to earn citizenship. In order to do so, they would be required to turn themselves into authorities, return home for a period of time (I believe about two years) and pay a somewhat hefty fine (it was about $2,000 if I remember correctly) before they would be fast-tracked to citizenship. Critics have said that the plan amounts to amnesty. While one of Webster's definitions of amnesty says, "the release from the penalties of an offense" (remember when you were in junior high and started every paper with "According to Webster's Dictionary, [the thing I'm writing about] is..."?) and the plan would indeed forgive certain individuals of the current penalties for illegal immigration, another definition contained there is, "the excusing of an offense without exacting a penalty." If that's the definition we're going with, then McCain's plan is definitely not amnesty. A couple thousand dollar fine and a bus ticket back from may not be the punishment many conservatives would prefer, but it's most certainly a punishment. I don't want to put words into his mouth, but I think that McCain's plan is mainly a function of his realistic viewpoint. Sure, we could hypothetically round up all 15 to 20 million illegal aliens and send them back home. Anybody on the far right have a solution of how to do that logistically? As far as I can see, it would be pretty much impossible. That's not to mention all the families that would be screwed up. Any child born here is an American citizen and I'm sure a lot of parents would choose to leave their kids behind to a better life. I can already see the TV footage of little kids crying as they're ripped from their parents' arms. Think Elian Gonzalez times a million. I'm all for upholding the law and tightening our borders and I think McCain is too, but sometimes you have to admit that your reach has exceeded your grasp and do anything you can to stem the bleeding.
The other major issue of contention between hardcore conservatives and McCain is the Bush tax cuts. When the tax cuts first went to congress, McCain went against the majority of republicans and voted against them. As you can imagine, that pissed a lot of people off. His reasoning was pretty solid, however. If you know anything about McCain's legislative history, you know that wasteful government spending has always been one of his favorite issues. Since he first arrived in the Senate, he's done everything he could to stamp out pork barrel spending, which is the euphemism given to the common practice of legislators inserting clauses into a bill that give their home states money for things that had nothing to do with the main thrust of the bill. It's the reason that a lot of people support a line-item veto and it's something that, according to McCain, was abundant in the tax cut bill. While he's generally for lower taxes, he couldn't in good conscience vote for a bill that was a textbook example of the very thing he's railed against for years. Since then, McCain has said that he thinks the Bush tax cuts were good for the economy and he supports making them permanent. Really, he's on the same page with conservatives on this one. Some of them just don't want to admit it.
Marisa commented that she feels like she has to pick the lesser evil this year. That's how I felt in 2004. I'd voted for Bush the first time and he'd proceeded to champion the godawful bad No Child Left Behind act, fail to make a convincing case for war and spread half-truths in the process and then completely mismanage said war to the point that people were already starting to compare it to Vietnam. I flat out refused to vote for him again. That left me with flip-flopping, soulless, liberal Kerry and I knew I couldn't vote for him either. I almost didn't vote at all, but then I decided that I'd use my vote to make a statement (albeit an unnoticed, mostly insignificant one). I voted for the Libertarian candidate because, while I don't necessarily agree with the Libertarian viewpoint on everything, I think it would be great if we had a few more parties to choose from. I got a lot of grief from my roommates for my decision, but I stand by it and I'd do it again faced with a similarly dismal choice. I don't, however, plan on voting Libertarian again this year. Anyone who's discussed politics with me will testify that I don't make any attempt to hide the fact that I'm a McCain fan. I dig the whole straight talker/maverick attitude and I agree with the majority of policy decisions he's made. We don't always see eye to eye and I don't blindly follow every word he says, but I happen to think he'd make an excellent president.
So there you have it. I'm going with door number three. Feel free to choose another option. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
Part 3 - John McCain
John McCain's a war hero. We all know that. Pretty much everyone who's not a Moveon.org pseudo-commie, half-insane liberal seems to agree that he's a man of strength and courage who loves his country dearly. He also has a vast amount of experience and more than enough commander in chief credentials. None of that will be enough by itself to win him the nomination, however. Let's take a look at how he stacks up otherwise.
Since its release in 2005, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's Lincoln biography Team of Rivals has gotten a fair amount of press. The main theme of the book is that Lincoln's true political genius came from the way he set up his cabinet. Rather than appointing only men who agreed with him on everything or repaying favors to his cronies, Lincoln selected four of his most bitter rivals as attorney general, secretary of state, secretary of treasury, and secretary of war respectively. Lincoln, according to Goodwin, looked beyond friendships and affiliations and, during a difficult era for our nation, wanted to be advised by the absolute smartest men he could find. I've seen Ms. Goodwin interviewed by both Tim Russert and John Stewart and they both discussed the idea that modern politicians should follow the Lincoln model. One of the problems with the Bush white house, as many people see it, is that he seems to insulate himself from the world and only listen to people who are telling him what he wants to hear. Of the three remaining candidates, I feel like John McCain would be the least likely to do that. Like Bush, he can be stubborn and tenacious on matters of principle, but unlike Bush, he has close friends and allies from both sides of the aisle and he's not afraid to change his position when he comes across new evidence. Many republicans frown at the fact that John McCain has sponsored bills with the Ted Kennedys and Dianne Feinstein's of the world, but I think it's great. If he's elected president, I'm confident that McCain will pick the most knowledgeable people he can find to be his sounding board, whether that means Mitt Romney or Joe Leiberman, Chuck Hagel or Lindsey Graham. But that's a bad thing to some people. According to many conservatives, John McCain is a dirty liberal. On both social and fiscal issues, however, he's solidly conservative. He has a 100% pro life voting record (for a somewhat nuanced explanation of why I think that's a good thing, read this post) and has never voted for a tax increase. So why do hardcore conservatives seem to hate him so much? Well, that's slightly complicated. For one thing, he's never sucked up to the talking heads. The Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world like to think they have their listeners wrapped around their fingers and if their enormous egos aren't placated, then they're quick to turn against the man or woman who slighted them. John McCain has always refused to kowtow to them or apologize for disagreeing. When conservative radio host Bill Cunningham was brought in my Cincinnati republicans to "warm up the crowd" before a McCain rally, he repeatedly used Obama's middle name, Hussein, in an obvious attempt to link him to Islam. As soon as he found out what had been said, McCain immediately repudiated Cunningham's statements and made it clear that that's not the kind of campaign he's running. Cunningham responded angrily to McCain's chastisement and said that he was going to join Ann Coulter in voting for Hillary. Tiffs like that have been occurring throughout McCain's career, so next time you hear some talk radio guy railing against him, remember that he's probably doing so with a built in bias based on some perceived slight against his fraternity.
That's not to say though that the conservatives don't have fair complaints about McCain's policies. There's two main issues on which the far right and John McCain strongly disagree. First, there's immigration. I haven't done intensive research on McCain's immigration views, but here's the gist as I understand it: McCain gave support to a plan that would allow illegal immigrants to earn citizenship. In order to do so, they would be required to turn themselves into authorities, return home for a period of time (I believe about two years) and pay a somewhat hefty fine (it was about $2,000 if I remember correctly) before they would be fast-tracked to citizenship. Critics have said that the plan amounts to amnesty. While one of Webster's definitions of amnesty says, "the release from the penalties of an offense" (remember when you were in junior high and started every paper with "According to Webster's Dictionary, [the thing I'm writing about] is..."?) and the plan would indeed forgive certain individuals of the current penalties for illegal immigration, another definition contained there is, "the excusing of an offense without exacting a penalty." If that's the definition we're going with, then McCain's plan is definitely not amnesty. A couple thousand dollar fine and a bus ticket back from may not be the punishment many conservatives would prefer, but it's most certainly a punishment. I don't want to put words into his mouth, but I think that McCain's plan is mainly a function of his realistic viewpoint. Sure, we could hypothetically round up all 15 to 20 million illegal aliens and send them back home. Anybody on the far right have a solution of how to do that logistically? As far as I can see, it would be pretty much impossible. That's not to mention all the families that would be screwed up. Any child born here is an American citizen and I'm sure a lot of parents would choose to leave their kids behind to a better life. I can already see the TV footage of little kids crying as they're ripped from their parents' arms. Think Elian Gonzalez times a million. I'm all for upholding the law and tightening our borders and I think McCain is too, but sometimes you have to admit that your reach has exceeded your grasp and do anything you can to stem the bleeding.
The other major issue of contention between hardcore conservatives and McCain is the Bush tax cuts. When the tax cuts first went to congress, McCain went against the majority of republicans and voted against them. As you can imagine, that pissed a lot of people off. His reasoning was pretty solid, however. If you know anything about McCain's legislative history, you know that wasteful government spending has always been one of his favorite issues. Since he first arrived in the Senate, he's done everything he could to stamp out pork barrel spending, which is the euphemism given to the common practice of legislators inserting clauses into a bill that give their home states money for things that had nothing to do with the main thrust of the bill. It's the reason that a lot of people support a line-item veto and it's something that, according to McCain, was abundant in the tax cut bill. While he's generally for lower taxes, he couldn't in good conscience vote for a bill that was a textbook example of the very thing he's railed against for years. Since then, McCain has said that he thinks the Bush tax cuts were good for the economy and he supports making them permanent. Really, he's on the same page with conservatives on this one. Some of them just don't want to admit it.
Marisa commented that she feels like she has to pick the lesser evil this year. That's how I felt in 2004. I'd voted for Bush the first time and he'd proceeded to champion the godawful bad No Child Left Behind act, fail to make a convincing case for war and spread half-truths in the process and then completely mismanage said war to the point that people were already starting to compare it to Vietnam. I flat out refused to vote for him again. That left me with flip-flopping, soulless, liberal Kerry and I knew I couldn't vote for him either. I almost didn't vote at all, but then I decided that I'd use my vote to make a statement (albeit an unnoticed, mostly insignificant one). I voted for the Libertarian candidate because, while I don't necessarily agree with the Libertarian viewpoint on everything, I think it would be great if we had a few more parties to choose from. I got a lot of grief from my roommates for my decision, but I stand by it and I'd do it again faced with a similarly dismal choice. I don't, however, plan on voting Libertarian again this year. Anyone who's discussed politics with me will testify that I don't make any attempt to hide the fact that I'm a McCain fan. I dig the whole straight talker/maverick attitude and I agree with the majority of policy decisions he's made. We don't always see eye to eye and I don't blindly follow every word he says, but I happen to think he'd make an excellent president.
So there you have it. I'm going with door number three. Feel free to choose another option. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
Friday, April 4, 2008
going to the candidates' debate
Shortly before I began yesterday’s post, I noticed that Barack Obama was a guest on "Hardball" and I watched a bit of the interview. Today, about an hour before I started this post, my mom called to tell me that tomorrow, Bill Clinton is going to be in Pembroke, a little town about fifteen minutes from my hometown of Lumberton. She jokingly asked me if I was going out to see him and I responded, "Nah...I already saw Dan Quayle in person. That’s enough greatness to last a lifetime." And it’s true. At least the first part. My mom and I went to see Dan Quayle speak in 1991, in the midst of Bush 1’s reelection campaign. I don’t remember anything he said at this point, but I do remember the crowd chanting, "Bush Quayle ’92!" and towards the end of his speech switching to a rousing "Quayle ’96! Quayle ’96!" I think the humor speaks for itself.
I did want to add a follow-up note to my post about Obama. The conservatives that support him seem to be blind to the fact that he’s been consistetnly rated as one of the most liberal democrats in the senate. While I haven’t heard him promise publicly funded abortions like that bastion of conservatism Rudy Guiliani (note the dripping sarcasm), he has said some scary things on the subject, most notably his proclimation in a recent stump speech that if one of his daughters was to someday make "one mistake," he wouldn’t want them to have to be "punished with a baby." Wow. On to Mrs. Clinton...
Part 2 - Hillary Clinton
Contrary to the belief of many of my conservative brethren, Hillary Rodham Clinton is probably not the antichrist. There’s no reported evidence of her stealing babies’ souls to keep herself youthful or sacrificing goats to Satan and I’m pretty sure she didn’t kill Vince Foster personally. She’s a smart, capable woman and I’m sure she’d do an excellent job of managing many things. I just don’t happen to think the country is one of them. It’s funny to me that she’s touting herself as the candidate of experience in her fight against Obama. This is only her second term in the Senate and before that she’d never held elected office. But Hillary would have you believe that being first lady should count as experience. She lived in the White House after all, right? She was advising Bill at the dinner table when all sorts of important stuff happened. She’s been to state dinners and visited other countries and shaken hands with all the important world leaders. That’s got to count for something, doesn’t it? And maybe it does. She was definitely a different kind of first lady than Laura Bush and people made jokes at the time about her being the real president. But they were only jokes. Recently released documents from her time in the White House show that she wasn’t present for the super-secret cabinet meetings she’d like you to think she chaired and her slate of activities really didn’t differ all that much from most first ladies after all. Hillary may have a slight edge over Barack in the experience department, but if so it’s only slight. And unlike Mr. Obama, Hillary hasn’t managed to convince anyone that she’s not a liberal. But honestly, while she’s definitely liberal enough that I’ll never vote for her, she has a slightly more middle-of-the road voting record than Obama and has shown a willingness to work with Republicans on a few occasions. Her problem isn’t her policy; it’s her personality. She often seems stiff and too rehearsed and never manages to appear as confident, comfortable, or friendly as Obama. You can call it sexism, but John Kerry and Bob Dole faced the same problem. After the ’96 election, the country found out via SNL and Daily Show appearances and the infamous "little blue friend" Pepsi commercial that Bob Dole was actually had a great sense of humor, something that may have helped him dethrone Bill. Maybe Hillary will lose this year’s election and afterwards appear on Oprah and cry and we’ll all discover that she’s a warm, loving, vulnerable person. If she does possess those traits, however, she may want to go ahead and let them out because Obama is charming and spending his way to the nomination. As many pundits have pointed out, Hillary and Barack differ only slightly on policy and most voters aren’t all that nit-picky. Since they both lack long-term governing experience, the primary is coming down to personality and trustworthiness. Hillary could never beat Obama on the first one and being married to a man commonly referred to as "Slick Willy" really doesn’t help her case on the second. It’s still too early to count her out completely, but it’s certainly not looking good for our old pal Hillary. Just like you remember in high school, elections often come down to simple likability. There’s a reason they call it the popular vote.
I did want to add a follow-up note to my post about Obama. The conservatives that support him seem to be blind to the fact that he’s been consistetnly rated as one of the most liberal democrats in the senate. While I haven’t heard him promise publicly funded abortions like that bastion of conservatism Rudy Guiliani (note the dripping sarcasm), he has said some scary things on the subject, most notably his proclimation in a recent stump speech that if one of his daughters was to someday make "one mistake," he wouldn’t want them to have to be "punished with a baby." Wow. On to Mrs. Clinton...
Part 2 - Hillary Clinton
Contrary to the belief of many of my conservative brethren, Hillary Rodham Clinton is probably not the antichrist. There’s no reported evidence of her stealing babies’ souls to keep herself youthful or sacrificing goats to Satan and I’m pretty sure she didn’t kill Vince Foster personally. She’s a smart, capable woman and I’m sure she’d do an excellent job of managing many things. I just don’t happen to think the country is one of them. It’s funny to me that she’s touting herself as the candidate of experience in her fight against Obama. This is only her second term in the Senate and before that she’d never held elected office. But Hillary would have you believe that being first lady should count as experience. She lived in the White House after all, right? She was advising Bill at the dinner table when all sorts of important stuff happened. She’s been to state dinners and visited other countries and shaken hands with all the important world leaders. That’s got to count for something, doesn’t it? And maybe it does. She was definitely a different kind of first lady than Laura Bush and people made jokes at the time about her being the real president. But they were only jokes. Recently released documents from her time in the White House show that she wasn’t present for the super-secret cabinet meetings she’d like you to think she chaired and her slate of activities really didn’t differ all that much from most first ladies after all. Hillary may have a slight edge over Barack in the experience department, but if so it’s only slight. And unlike Mr. Obama, Hillary hasn’t managed to convince anyone that she’s not a liberal. But honestly, while she’s definitely liberal enough that I’ll never vote for her, she has a slightly more middle-of-the road voting record than Obama and has shown a willingness to work with Republicans on a few occasions. Her problem isn’t her policy; it’s her personality. She often seems stiff and too rehearsed and never manages to appear as confident, comfortable, or friendly as Obama. You can call it sexism, but John Kerry and Bob Dole faced the same problem. After the ’96 election, the country found out via SNL and Daily Show appearances and the infamous "little blue friend" Pepsi commercial that Bob Dole was actually had a great sense of humor, something that may have helped him dethrone Bill. Maybe Hillary will lose this year’s election and afterwards appear on Oprah and cry and we’ll all discover that she’s a warm, loving, vulnerable person. If she does possess those traits, however, she may want to go ahead and let them out because Obama is charming and spending his way to the nomination. As many pundits have pointed out, Hillary and Barack differ only slightly on policy and most voters aren’t all that nit-picky. Since they both lack long-term governing experience, the primary is coming down to personality and trustworthiness. Hillary could never beat Obama on the first one and being married to a man commonly referred to as "Slick Willy" really doesn’t help her case on the second. It’s still too early to count her out completely, but it’s certainly not looking good for our old pal Hillary. Just like you remember in high school, elections often come down to simple likability. There’s a reason they call it the popular vote.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
teenage politics
I’ve posted several blogs about political issues in the past, but I’ve never taken the time to lay out my position on the broader political spectrum. At some point I may write a blog explaining why I’m a conservative or lay out the planks that would make up my platform were I a candidate for something. For the moment, however, I’m going to spend a few days sharing my views on the candidates for president. Sure, it would have been more interesting to do this before the field was parsed down to three candidates, when there were Huckabees and Pauls and Kucinicheses to write about, but I’m lazy and this is free. Sue me.
Part 1 - Barack Obama
As we all know by now, Barack Obama is a fantastic orator. An African-American Clinton supporter recently claimed that, within the black tradition, Obama would only be considered a mediocre speaker. If that’s the case, every black preacher in the country must be Martin Luther King because whatever mojo Obama’s got going, it’s taken America by storm. He first burst onto the national scene with a speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention and since then he’s been gaining supporters and fans every time he’s opened his mouth. Obama almost never fails to present himself as intelligent, forthright, thoughtful, and trustworthy and on top of that he’s run a fabulous tactical campaign as well. Every time he’s been attacked, he’s responded almost perfectly. Obama’s done such a great job that he’s even won supporters among those that typically vote Republican, but are hungry for the change that the senator offers. The problem is, Obama simply does not have the credentials to back up his eloquent words. He says the right things, but there’s no proof that he has the wherewithal to implement the "change" he speaks out for or that he’ll even attempt to follow through on his commitments. Even if you consider his four years in the Senate (most of those spent campaigning) and his seven serving the state of Illinois to be more than enough experience, his actions during those tenures don’t seem to match up with many of the statements he’s making now. He says he’s all about ending partisan politics and reaching across the aisle, but he’s never worked with Republicans on any legislation or voted contrary to party lines and he refused to join the Senate’s "Gang of 14" that brokered a cross-party compromise on judicial nominees. He claims he knows how to get things done in Washington, but even his staunchest supporters can’t come up with one thing he’s ever accomplished other than "inspiring." He claims he’s a man of virtue and integrity, but he refuses to reaffirm the pledge he made to use public funding in the general election now that he’s amassed a fortune in donations. Don’t get me wrong: I think Obama is probably a good guy. I liked what he had to say in his speech about race. I agree with his opinions on gay marriage and No Child Left Behind. It doesn’t bother me that he bowls like a girl. Thing is, all of my opinions on him, and everyone else’s as well, are based solely on his words. Call me cynical, but in politics, actions very seldom mirror words. Voting for Obama is like getting excited about a Christmas present that’s still wrapped up. Under that crisp paper and shiny bow, there may be that Wii you’ve been asking for since August or it may be another sweater from Aunt Ruth.
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