Clinton and Obama: First comes love…

I love perfect timing. To kill time at work, I was reading this story:

Bill Clinton: Race, gender key in S.C.

It included this great quote from Bill Clinton:

Voting for president along racial and gender lines "is understandable because people are proud when someone who they identify with emerges for the first time," the former president told a Charleston audience while campaigning for his wife.

He was basically said, black voters are voting for Obama simply because he’s black. (It also kinda implied that women would vote for Hillary because she's a woman) Nice. I’m sure that didn’t offend anybody. Sorry to have to tell you this, but only white males aren't superficial in their decision making process. Read the full story at some point, it’s filled with bickering between both candidates. It really shows how Obama is running against both Clintons.

Now, at the EXACT same time that I was reading this story, I got an campaign email from Michelle Obama, “the wife”, with the subject line: What We Didn’t Expect.

I’ll let her explain in her own words:

“In the past week or two, another candidate's spouse has been getting an awful lot of attention.

We knew getting into this race that Barack would be competing with Senator Clinton and President Clinton at the same time.

We expected that Bill Clinton would tout his record from the nineties and talk about Hillary's role in his past success. That's a fair approach and a challenge we are prepared to face.

What we didn't expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we've seen recently. We didn't expect misleading accusations that willfully distort Barack's record.

Barack Obama isn't relying on a former President of the United States to campaign for him.”

I love it; this race is officially REALLY interesting to me.

GTKTPRFP - Barack Obama: Part I (Seriousness Level: Severe)

*Disclaimer - For every candidate I’m going to devote 2 hours to look over their opinions on key issues and pointing out where I disagree. Then I’ll be looking at the major issues playing in the media that will dissuade people from voting for them. I’m trying to summarize thoughts, so please don’t take my words as absolute fact. If you have any gripes with my summary, please look to the candidate’s website for their official opinion. This is my interpretations from 2 hours ONLY. I reserve the right to change my opinion as this proceeds.

Baseball Card Statistics:

-

Full Name: Barack Hussein Obama

Age: 46

Marital Status: Married to Michelle Obama

Party Affiliation: Democratic

Most Recent Office Held: Junior Senator, Illinois

College: Columbia University, Harvard Law School

Religious Affiliation: United Church of Christ

Eric’s Official Nickname: Ophrama

Official Candidate website: http://www.barackobama.com/

Randomness: He is a pretty good poker player and is trying to quit smoking.
-
Pre-issue thoughts
-
Ophrama is the most interesting candidate running for President in my opinion. But he’s facing a couple challenges. First, randomly, no United States senator has been elected president since John F. Kennedy. He doesn’t have a ton of experience, compared to heavyweights McCain and Biden. But for me, the key and tough question to ask is: “Can a non-white, multi-cultural candidate win the Presidency, whose name happens to be Barack Hussein Obama?” I mean are you kidding me? I know there are millions of Muslims named Hussein that are great, but running for President with that name. We just got done invading Iraq, which lead to the trial and execution of a guy named, wait for it…Hussein. I guess it’s like the Michael Bolton line from Office Space. One guy ruins it for the rest of them. Ophrama should have changed his name last month to George Lincoln Kennedy. But he’s a unique guy who has the backing of Oprah. Now that’s a heck of an endorsement. She should travel to different speaking locations and give his audiences new Dodge Neons or something. I really want to like this guy.
-
Abbreviated Interesting Issue Watch

-

Iraq – Regardless of your feelings about the war, we’re there, things aren’t going great, and some sort of plan needs to be put into place. Democrats blame the war on the Bush Administration, but they voted for it too. I’ve said this before, but one website projects the Iraq War has cost us $482 billion. That’s unbelievable. I love that Ophrama always lays out everything in practical steps. It doesn’t feel like its as much jargon and that’s actually thought about this stuff before. Here are a couple of his points: Bringing Our Troops Home; Regional Diplomacy; and Press Iraq’s Leaders to Reconcile.
-
First Ophrama, you can press all you want. You’re not going to persuade leaders following separate doctrine to just because the US wants them to. He says “The best way to press Iraq’s leaders to take responsibility for their future is to make it clear that we are leaving.” In a related story: Insurgents rejoice that the infidel is leaving their country and begin assassinating US-backed leaders. (See Pakistan).
-
Also about regional diplomacy: “Obama will launch the most aggressive diplomatic effort in recent American history to reach a new compact on the stability of Iraq and the Middle East.” Then the next day he will begin to make sure to put down the Alabama-Auburn and Ohio State-Michigan rivalries. I like his moxie, but I think it’s a little presumptuous.
-
He is also going to begin bringing troops home immediately. “Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.” I’m not smart enough to know the difference, but I wonder if this includes all National Guard units, etc. Also, what if the region goes crazy? Are we still pulling out then? What if there is a coo and another bad guy takes over? Are we calling a do-over and going back in later? I think we’re in a mess and this is too simple an answer.
-
National Security – Here are his category listings for homeland protection: “Evacuating Special Needs Population in Emergencies; Keeping Track of Spent Nuclear Fuel; Protecting the Public from Radioactive Releases; Keeping Our Drinking Water Safe” At least these are practical. He doesn’t really mention the Patriot Act, because he voted to keep it around. He spoke against it before he became a Senator and then…whoops.
-
Eric’s Gut Feeling After 2 Hours of Research

I think he’s an interesting candidate. I disagree a lot with comments on Faith and his view of US Healthcare. He’s going to be around for a while, so I can discuss him in-depth again. If I were a Democrat in Iowa, I would probably be voting today for Biden, Ophrama, Edwards in that order. It will be interesting how America continues to respond to him. I think that he would/will make an incredible VP candidate, but we’ll see. By the way, don’t you think that Iowa has a little too much power in this race? Right Said Fred might drop out if he loses Iowa. Are all states that similar? I mean if Fred is more popular in the South, then why would he pack up shop after performing bad in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada? Shouldn’t he just start campaigning everywhere else and go for the bigger stats? I guess that’s why I don’t work for CNN.

Eric’s Official Rating

I give him an 81. If I woke up tomorrow, I wouldn’t be ramming my head in the wall. That’s good enough for now I guess.