I guess the whole incentive to create this thread is based on last night's speeches and recent events over the past few weeks. For the record, I am a 34 year old "white" male who normally votes Republican, which seems to make me quite the minority coming from South Jersey. I vote this way based on several factors such as taxes, limited government, defense, etc., but in terms of environmental policy, I tend to lean much more Democrat. While considered caucasian, I don't really accept this label as my ancestors hailed from Greece and are probably considered a minority in the country if the status was based on population alone which, I assume it is not.
Truth be told, I don't have much of a horse in this race. I was backing Romney, who lost out when Huckabee split his vote. I'm not sure where they came from, but the McCainites seem to come out of the woodwork every time their called upon and they got their guy through. While I think McCain is probably a great guy, he does little to inspire me and I personally would like to have gotten a candidate who was a better communicator having dealt with Bush these last 8 years. Regardless, it is what it is so I'll have to accept that. That being said, I've been much more attentive to the other candidates than I normally would have been had my choice gotten the nod instead of McCain.
Now that my intro is out of the way, I will say that having watched several of Obama's speeches, I have found some of his political goals inspirational. Like him, I do think that Washington is "broken" and we need change. While I'm on board for his overhaul of the healthcare system, I'm not fooled by the whole notion of "free healthcare" that both Hillary and Obama propose because I know that nothing is "free". Free healthcare means someone is going to have to flip the bill i.e. higher taxes and a smaller paycheck every two weeks. On the flip side, I'm not overly confident that McCain has any tangible solution either - and if he does have one, I've yet to hear it.
On energy, I'm 100% on board with Obama. Why reward those who hate us by purchasing their resources and in essence, providing more funds for them to attack us with? Now the REAL questions become, just how will Obama or McCain magically transition us to another energy source, where will this source come from, and what harmful byproducts will it emit? Regardless, there is no denying that we should have come up with this alternative fuel source yesterday but the incentive nor funding was sufficient - and I'm sure our government was pressured by the powers that be who have money.
Here's where I start second guessing Obama though; Judgement. It's probably the most important asset a President can have and yet if you look at this latest Trinity Church debacle, it clearly shows that he's been lacking it. I'm not going to bore you with my attempt to sum up this concern of mine, but rather post a few passages from a recent article from the WSJ that I think addresses it better than I can;
There is also the matter of judgment, and the roots of his political character. We were among those inclined at first to downplay his association with the Trinity United Church. But Mr. Obama's handling of the episode has raised doubts about his candor and convictions. He has by stages moved from denying that his 20-year attendance was an issue at all; to denying he'd heard Rev. Jeremiah Wright's incendiary remarks; to criticizing certain of those remarks while praising Rev. Wright himself; to repudiating the words and the reverend; and finally this weekend to leaving the church.
Most disingenuously, he said on Saturday that the entire issue caught him by surprise. Yet he was aware enough of the political risk that he kept Rev. Wright off the stage during his announcement speech more than a year ago.
A 2004 Chicago Sun-Times interview with Mr. Obama mentioned three men as his religious guides. One was Rev. Wright. Another was Father Michael Pfleger, the Louis Farrakhan ally whose recent remarks caused Mr. Obama to resign from Trinity, but for whose Chicago church Mr. Obama channeled at least $225,000 in grants as a state senator. Until recently, the priest was connected to the campaign, which flew him to Iowa to host an interfaith forum. Father Pfleger's testimony for the candidate has since been scrubbed from Mr. Obama's campaign Web site. A third mentor was Illinois state Senator James Meeks, another Chicago pastor who has generated controversy for mixing pulpit and politics.
The point is not that Mr. Obama now shares the radical views of these men. The concern is that by the Senator's own admission they have been major moral influences, and their views are starkly at odds with the candidate's vision as a transracial peacemaker. Their patronage was also useful as Mr. Obama was making his way in Chicago politics. But only now, in the glare of a national campaign, is he distancing himself from them. The question is what in fact Mr. Obama does believe.
In all honesty, had this issue not occurred, I think Obama would probably have delivered a decisive knock-out blow to McCain come the November elections. But instead of emerging as the candidate of change, I think he's now got a lot of us scratching our heads wondering how he could remain at that church while simultaneously preaching about unifying the races, etc.
While some have said to me that there is nothing to fear in terms of those blacks hating whites, etc., and that the kind of talk at Trinity is somewhat common among black churches - and that this rhetoric is used more as a form of "empowerment", I ask myself this; why must one race empower themselves at the expense of another? This is to say, why must empowerment of blacks at Trinity go hand-in-hand with the demonization of whites? see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWigzBCl ... re=related
For example, Pfleger paints with quite a broad stroke when he says that whites are benefitting from the past hardships of slavery. But as I pointed out in my introduction, my grandparents came over long after slavery had ended and had nothing to do with slavery. But because my skin is light, I am now considered one of the beneficiaries, and am therefore guilty. Isn't that what civil rights leaders fought so hard to overcome - discrimination based on color.
Again, even if you don't attribute these radical preachers' views to Obama, which the WSJ author does not, one still can't help wondering how someone with his ambitions could be so careless as to remain at Trinity. Even Oprah left Trinity upon realizing the negative impact it could have on her reputation. Where was Obama's judgement?
I think the reason why I keep coming back to this issue with Obama is that when I listen to him talk, he does move me. He's about as a great an inspirational speaker as I've seen in US politics. But this whole Trinity affiliation issue really troubles me. Am I making too much out of this or is this a legitimate concern?
Anyway, I welcome all your thoughts on this issue and please feel free to comment on why or why you do not support any of the three (assuming Hillary may never drop out
) candidates.
STChaser
Again, Oprah had the better judgement to leave Trinity. What does that tell you?
