I change my mind

I plan to vote for Barack Obama. Nothing I heard last night on the Joe the Plumber Show makes me think either candidate is likely to interject anything new into the conversation, so this seems like the time to make it official.

I believed everything I wrote in support of John McCain at the time I wrote it, and I still believe our country would be much better off today if he had beaten Bush in the 2000 primaries and gone on to win the Presidency -- but I think his time has passed.

I’ve been very disappointed that he did not move to the political middle and fight for the independent vote, which I thought he had a very good chance to win. Selecting Governor Palin was, for me, a complete deal breaker, and according to the polls, the same was true for millions of other Americans, which has to bring his judgment into question. I’ve also been put off by the anger that seems to eat at him.

But mine will not be an anti-McCain vote. I have reasons for selecting Obama, some of which are policy and logic-based, and some are just my personal instincts. (This might be a good time to say that I don’t consider myself anything other than an ordinary voter who happens to write a blog.) Here are my “fact based” reasons:

I am less fearful of Obama’s health care plan than of Senator McCain’s, which I think will take health care away from more people than it will help.

Obama is more likely to make a serious effort to develop alternative energy options, which is a crucial political act to free us from the tyranny of dependence on imported oil and the despots who control it.

Obama has shown a cool and steady demeanor through-out the primaries and the general election campaign that makes me feel he would not panic in difficult times. While I find him aloof and cold, perhaps it’s time to elect the candidate with whom it would be less fun to have a beer.

Obama is a greatly superior communicator, who writes and speaks in simple, declarative sentences; and he seems to understand the power of communicating well. We’re in for some challenging times over the next few years and the ability to communicate well in order to persuade and lead the public is going to be more important than ever.

It is also time to give the other half of America a chance at the helm. Millions of Americans feel they were cheated out of a victory in 2000 by the Electoral College, an antiquated and anti-democratic system that negated the popular vote. Nearly 80% of Americans are dissatisfied with Bush’s leadership, and the people who voted against him should have a chance to test their own man and his policies against the country’s challenges; otherwise, we risk making the wedge that divides us too great to ever bridge.

I’ve voted in nine Presidential elections and I’m 5-4 so far. But I regretted three of the five “winners” before his term was over, so I have some trepidation about making any pick. What if Obama turns out to be an old-fashion entitlement liberal who turns over the money-printing presses to Nancy Pilosi? I don’t think he will, but that would be a disaster from which we might never recover. On the other hand, the same could be true if a President McCain actually did “bomb, bomb Iran.” Who knows? In the end it is all a crap shoot. At some point you just have to roll the bones and hope you don’t crap out.

But finally, a part of me wants Obama to win just because I like the way it renews and confirms the essence of the American story. We elect a man of mixed race who rises from welfare, to Harvard, to the White House. He unites a divided country, puts people ahead of politics, ends the war, restores prosperity and discovers the secret to wringing unlimited energy from ragweed.

Only in America, my friends.