eirias | (no subject) (Reply)

You know, when Graham and I went to vote this morning, I thought, huh, it's a little brisk today. Just checked the weather: turns out it's -3. Yes, in Fahrenheit. With a windchill of -15.

I voted for Obama. People keep asking me my reasons and they're hard to verbalize. Here are a few.

Of the two remaining Democrats, I think he's got the best chance of respecting the rule of law and executive restraint. My reasons for this belief:
- One of his key victories in the Illinois Senate was passing a bill requiring videotaping of police interrogations. This is important because it strongly limits police ability to coerce confessions out of people (which I hear is a distressingly common practice otherwise). This is a hard type of legislation to pass, but not only did he get it passed, he got it passed unanimously.
- Many of the lawyers for the Guantanamo detainees support Obama.
- On the flip side, I don't think Clinton can afford to do anything that puts White House power under further scrutiny, because she's beholden to protecting her husband.
- I also think Clinton's campaign strategies are suggestive of a desire for power that is not particularly restrained by respect for rules. I say this because of the controversy she's courting regarding the party-invalidated primaries in Michigan and Florida. I want to emphasize: the desire for power is not a problem for me, but her apparent willingness to fight dirty to get it is, because I think it's indicative of what she'll do with the expanded powers now available to the White House: keep them, because it's more convenient.
Obama is a good communicator. I've addressed this before, but I think that's a major part of leadership at this level.
He's really smart. Okay, this does not particularly distinguish him from Clinton ;). But gosh it's nice to have the chance to vote for someone I respect intellectually. In particular I respect him because when he tells a story about his own thought process, he's willing to show off the messy bits where he changed his mind: see his memoir for a good example (written in 1995, so no, it's not a political hack job -- and dear God I just noticed that first printings of this book are collectors items going for hundreds of dollars on Amazon). This trait is a differentiator between the two leading Democrats: as far as I can tell, when Clinton changes her mind she sort of pretends she hasn't really ("we have always been at war with Eurasia"). This is still better than Bush's refusal to change his mind at all, but it's not intellectually honest and I don't like it as much.
Above all, his message actually strikes me as really practical. This will probably surprise those of you who are turned off by his words about hope. I think the point of his rhetoric is to try to melt the cynicism out of people, liberals in particular, because cynicism is not useful. Oh sure, it's a good painkiller when you're trying to stanch a wound to the Constitution, but it won't actually repair a damn thing. For repair, you need a message that's a little more motivating than "Bush is an asshole and this country blows goats!" Obama gets that, and while I don't think he's the only one at this point, I think he's done the best job crafting a good replacement. The best idealists are also practical people, and my gut tells me he's one of them.