Obama for President

I have really been struggling with McCain over the last few days. Despite it all, I still think he is an honorable man, though I don't think his campaign has shown much of that. The Palin thing was a catastrophe and showed the country the worst elements of McCain's personality. But some part of me is recoiling against the false hurt that some of Obama's supporters have shown. John Lewis is a great man, but using the the actions of some in McCain and Palin's crowds to compare McCain's campaign to that of George Wallace seems to me at least overwrought, if not overtly political code for the Democratic base of Liberals and minorities.

Yes, some of the McCain ads have been horrific, and Palin's "Paling around with terrorists" remark was dangerous and disgusting (though not that surprising coming from her. What a hack!). But I like to think, and I do believe that McCain himself has shown little stomach for the mud slinging. It's been odd really, and a little cowardly I guess.

But if McCain were willing to really "Willie Horton" Obama and if he had made a sober choice for VP I think the polls would be closer, though the landscape would probably feel meaner. And Christ it feels mean enough already. In the end, I just don't believe McCain's soul is that black.

Palin's crowds behaved at times like they were at a Klan rally, but I was deeply touched that McCain stood up three or four separate times last Friday, and even against the boos of his own crowd put down the stupidity of the ill-informed rabble and called Obama an honorable church going man that no American needed to fear. I know there are some who will say he did it out of political expediency, but I am not as cynical as that. Not yet, anyway, but ask me in a few months. Anyway, I would bet a hundred bucks that that woman that called Obama an

A-Rab really wanted to drop the N-word on him. But that woman is not McCain's fault and he did the righteous thing in taking the mike from her and responding the way he die. For me last Friday was the highlight of the either man's campaign, and I am trying now to remember if and when Obama showed such grace.

 McCain seemed genuinely disappointed last night that Obama did not agree to the Lincoln-Douglas town halls that were previously agreed to. The William Ayers thing was a red herring, but McCain clearly does not have an affinity for the argument. He has laid off Jeremiah Wright completely, which even to me was at least partially fair game.

And while I believe that the US should absolutely apply a more even hand to the till in the Middle East, Reverend Jackson's comments recently smacked of a sense arrogant entitlement that I found troubling. If he really used the word Zionist (I really don't trust the Post when it comes to the Rev) -- dripping as it does with the memories of "Hymietown"-- then Jackson needs to move on. This is no time to fight that battle, or settle old scores. And Obama needs to be careful not to get drawn into some "Don't Ask Don't Tell" trap in the first 100 days. These are very serious times.

Obama backed out of the town hall meetings, and public financing, as well as a handful of progressive policy decisions after his nomination. All of it was safe. Can't blame him I guess, but it does not make him flame retardant. To me Obama hid out for much of the campaign. I only hope that the cool that he exhibited belies a passion for fixing things, because this is no time for political caution. If he fritters away the next four years on school uniforms and highway projects, than the democrats deserve purgatory for the next 50.

So I do have some cold feet on Barack too. Perhaps we American's just have to learn to have to live with less certainty.

The country needs sound management not an ideologue. I am not at all sure that Obama will be able to work across the aisle and get things done. Somehow I think McCain would. What is unclear with McCain though is how much he would govern from the right. He certainly has run from the right.

So even though it'll probably cost me some dough I will still vote for Obama, with hope in my heart and the sure knowledge that even though McCain himself has recaptured some of what was honorable in him, there is no way he can fill 50,000 political positions without appointing hundreds if not thousands of the same political hacks, leeches, incompetents, and yahoo ideologues and that have populated Bush's completely failed presidency. It is time for a change.

I hope the kids are right about Barack. I really do.