Why a vote for Hillary now is (possibly) a vote for Obama later

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By all demographic profiles, I should be an Obama voter. I have a Ph.D., teach at a university in a “progressive” discipline (history) and make somewhere around $75,000 a year. I am white, but do not carry around race and class fears that people like Rev. Wright bring out in many people. But I did not vote for Obama in my primary, an early Super-Tuesday one at which time I thought of the candidates as “close” in ideas. I opted for “experience” but I had nothing against Obama except that he was unvetted and I didn’t see solid policy behind the calls for “hope” and “change.”

At the time, I thought, Obama will be ready in 8 years. He’d be a great person to take over after Hillary held the White House for 8 years. By then, he’d have been in the Senate to establish a track record; he’d have made Washington connections that are necessary to get your ideas through (like or not, that is just a fact–you can’t really be a Washington outsider and get your bills passed by Washington insiders); and he would have matured so that his policies would be solid. I didn’t want him to lose his idealism, but just to have some experience.

I like and trust Obama much less now. Like a lot of people, I was left cold by remarks like “typical white person,” but I can forgive it. I don’t think Rev. Wright is crazy, but I do think Obama’s denouncing of his pastor shows a lack of character on Obama’s part. Stand by your man. He wasn’t saying anything different. You can say you don’t agree with everything, but don’t say you’ll be with him and then toss him, as they say, under the bus. But no politician lives up to “character” scrutiny very well. Obama does need more vetting in this area, which he will have after 8 years. If he survives that scrutiny and gets a little tougher (he’s kind of thin-skinned about criticism), he could be ready in 8 years.

The real issues with Obama are the issues. He is a smart man. But because his bid for the presidency came out of the blue (even for him), his policy papers are either written by academics and not fully absorbed by him, or they are half-finished. He has no good energy policy. His healthcare plan is not as comprehensive as Clinton’s. He has not dealt with the problems of No Child Left Behind. He criticizes Hillary Clinton on her foreign policy statements as “realpolitik” and out-moded, but in fact there needs to be someone who can transition from a Bush “war on terror” to peace. Terrorists are real and won’t go away, and he has no plan other than “diplomacy.” Whatever that means in a context like this where terrorists don’t generally sit down at tables in Geneva.

The United States is in a mess. One of the worst messes it has been in since the Great Depression. The quagmire Bush has us in makes “hope” and “change” a powerful message, but you just can’t hope it will change. You need plans. Where is Obama’s plan? How will he execute it when he has no executive experience? He touts his community organizing experience, something he did post-college and before law school. He has a little, very little, legislative experience.

Younger people sometimes sneer at “experience” and think old people just don’t have a freaking clue. Academics often sneer at workers whom they admire when they write books but look down upon when they actually have to deal with one. Perhaps because I come from the working class and didn’t go to college right after high school, I have a healthy respect for working people. Obama needs to gain some of that respect, and not just for working class whites. His policies actually don’t address a lot of the needs of the black working class either. Frankly, class more than race divides America now, thanks to years of Republican rule.

I think American is ready to have a black president, and I am not suggesting we wait because America needs more time. I think Obama needs more time. (I think his wife needs more time to get used to the idea.) America has shown it is ready to “throw the bums out” but we need to bring in someone prepared to clean up the mess.

Let’s take the gas tax situation. Obama has been critical of it as no solution, but mischaracterized what Clinton is proposing, which is not merely a gas tax holiday. 

Besides using a windfall profits tax to pay for suspending the gas tax this summer, Hillary’s plan includes:

• Stopping new additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, be ready to release oil to counter market spikes;
• Cracking down on speculation by energy traders and market manipulation that are driving up the price of oil buy at least $20 a barrel;
• Pressuring OPEC to increase oil production, including by filing a WTO complaint against OPEC countries 

There are multi-level solutions to our problems, every one of them, and her plans includes those steps.

If you want a successful Obama presidency someday, it makes sense to wait. I know the impatient supporters of Obama will not want to hear that message, but I am a 49-year-old geezer with radical tendencies and sometimes, patience is a virtue. 

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