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Rhode Island: Vote for Obama

Barack offers the best chance for a fresh start
February 27, 2008 3:00:48 PM
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The 2008 election is guaranteed to enjoy a special place in history. For the first time since 1825, when James Monroe left office after succeeding James Madison, the nation will have seen two presidents, William Clinton and George W. Bush, each complete eight consecutive years in office. Granted, Clinton had to endure impeachment, and Bush botched the challenge of Hurricane Katrina, bollixed the economy, subverted the constitution, and embroiled America in Iraq. Nevertheless, their contiguous tenures mark an unusual period of executive stability.
 
Throughout most of our history, assassination, scandal, and political upheavals have conspired to keep the occupancy of the Oval Office churning. Given this precedent, it is remarkable that this nation — the world’s oldest constitutional republic — has been so comparatively secure. Clearly, as the venerable saying goes, Providence looks after orphans, drunks, and the United States.
 
Also worth noting: for the first time since 1928, neither a sitting president nor his vice-president are seeking election. In other words, it has been 80 years since voters have made their choices on a relatively clean slate. Given the sinister influence of Vice-President Cheney, that is indeed providential.
 
The most historic developments of 2008, of course, are the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. One way or another, the Democrats are poised to nominate either the first woman or the first African-American as a candidate for president.
 
There is no doubt that either Clinton or Obama would be superior to the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain. Elections, however, are about making a choice. When Democrats and Independents go to the polls next Tuesday, the Phoenix urges a vote for Barack Obama.
 
Obama’s candidacy is not only about hope, not only about change. Most important of all, it is about the future.
 
Almost four years ago in Boston, Obama, then an Illinois state senator, electrified and inspired the Democratic convention as no national newcomer had done since 1948, when Hubert Humphrey championed the cause of civil rights.
 
Obama’s clarion call has been to reject the politics of confrontation and division as practiced by Bush, right-wingers, and talk-radio motor mouths.
 
His vision is of comity and common purpose. Eloquence is his calling card. It is penetrating, transcending verbal facility — the hallmark of someone at peace with himself, someone who is comfortable inside his own skin, someone who is confident rather than cocksure. Obama is also a maverick. There is no doubt that his promise outstrips his experience. That was also true of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. Vision was their strength; rhetoric was their means to an end.
 
Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Wilson so successfully captured the spirit of their times — synthesizing the best, marginalizing the worst — that history remembers them as representative leaders: presidents who made a difference. The Phoenix believes that Obama has the capacity to do so, too, in a way that Clinton — for all that is admirable about her — does not.
 
Obama comes to the political marketplace unencumbered by the bonds of dynasty. By voting for him on Tuesday, citizens are maximizing the opportunity to put the recent past behind them and to start anew.

There is a degree of uncertainty in all of this. Promise and progress are never risk free. But in matters of policy and program, the disparities between Obama and Clinton are so minimal as to be all but meaningless. The horse trading and compromise with Congress that would be necessary to enact either of their agendas further level the playing field.
 
For those still uncertain as to whether they will choose Obama or Clinton on Tuesday, consider this: when it came to the defining issue of the past several years, Iraq, Obama was right and Clinton was wrong. Clinton’s vision was clouded. Obama’s vision was clear.
 
If ever there were a need for clarity — of purpose and resolve — it is now. Society is atomized. The economy is shaky. And our international standing is compromised.
 
Together, Obama and Clinton — each in their own way, each according to their own talents and nature — have restored a sense of hope and promise to the progressively minded electorate. Women, African-Americans, Latinos, and people under 40 (especially younger voters) have been energized.
 
We believe that, come the final election in November, Barack Obama has the talent and temperament to consolidate this refreshing enthusiasm and energy, and to put the sorry Bush years behind us.
 
Vote for Obama as if history depends on it. America’s future certainly does.

COMMENTS

Fast Forward to What America's Future Could be! Incase you missed it........................ During the Feb 19th debates in Ohio Senator Obama who also serves as Chair of the subcommittee that has oversight over NATO admitted he has not held one single substantive hearing to figure out what the U.S can do to have a stronger presence with Nato in Afghanistan. Obama admitted it was true stating it was because his responsibilities as chair began at the same time he started running for President. So while hundreds of thousand of our young men and women are at great risk and being killed in Afghanistan Obama’s admission that he was too busy running for president clearly proves he is not only not ready to be president, but someone should be questioning his ability to be an effective senator as well. The day after Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee noted that Senator Clinton has introduced more legislation to address the problems facing wounded service members than any other Senator, including The Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act (accomplished while running her presidential race). Kennedy got it wrong or failed to do his homework when he endorsed Obama in Rhode Island for having better judgement. It's a no brainer... Hillary O8

POSTED BY Another voice AT 03/02/08 11:45 AM
I couldn't agree more with Another Voice. Aside from admitting that he hasn't held committee hearings because he's been running for President, he's also fudged his relation with Rezko, finally admitting that while he gave the money contributed by Rezko to charity, he kept the money contribute by Rezko's wife and associates. See the link to ABC.com: //abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4215299&page=1 Additionally, the recent revelations about the Obama campaign's fudging his position on NAFTA is further cause for concern. See //blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/nafta-shafta.html For a candidate who projects himself as beyond the taint of politics, and who is quick to say "words count" and that he has the requisite judgment to lead this country, the questions necessarily arise whether his words count when he says one thing to OHIO voters and another to the Canadians, and whether his judgment is impeccable when he accepts large sums of money linked to a guy who has publicly been under investigation for more than two years.

POSTED BY Geoff AT 03/03/08 1:19 PM
This whole business about Obama is so POLITICS. Hillary is the blackest little pot when it comes to shady characters from the past, she has gotten an easy ride. NO one dares mention the past for Hillary. Maybe everyone forgot the S&L that went down that she had both hands in, the women that Bill abused repeatedly and Hillary battered their names in public calling them bimbos and "the vast right wing conspiracy" remember that Bill later admitted it. Hillary condoned his abusive treatment. I work with women who are abused by men like Bill. Being humiliated and abused is not an excusable trait. Hillary enabled this behavior for political power. They are scary individuals. Hillary is not a good role model for America. Obama is being battered right now because of his momentum. Obama is our best future.

POSTED BY jeanann AT 03/04/08 10:58 AM
We don't need a polarizing figure like Clinton at this time. I lived through that legacy and it is done. The power hungry devisiveness of a politician touting "experience" lacks passion. She predicts a “battle” with Republicans, and touts her accomplishments to this mindset as a virtue. She forgets they too are Americans. Our spirits would suffer. The nation, and the troubling world needs a smart, genuine, person with drive and energy. A thoughtful leader, a healer, and a great thinker combined. It is preposterous to suggest that anyone has the experience which makes them qualified to hold the office of the President of the United States of America. It’s not about experience. Obama can transend us. He has that special magnetism that only comes along every 40 years. This country suffers today from a unique history. The blacks in this country have a heritage that is unlike other immigrants who came to America to pursue the American dream. The majority of Blacks in America are descendents from slaves. As a nation, we all suffer from this legacy. We could have a civil war that freed the slaves. But it did not create a reality in the minds. We could have a civil rights movement that changed the laws and after 40 years, a society that has progressed towards that original proclamation. But it will take a remarkable human being who can transend a nation and free the souls. There are many blacks in this country that live in a reality that they are disenfranchised. This hopelessness is costly to our society. It packs our prisons. This is an important time in history for the right person to take the presidency to heights we have not seen since Lincoln. If he can transcend race, it will bring us all aboard the engine of prosperity as a united nation. It will jumpstart our economy, make us more productive, make us stronger. No key thing is more important to get our house in order now than to unite us as a people.

POSTED BY jeanann AT 03/04/08 11:01 AM

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