Why I voted for Obama and Biden

By Nick Gier, New West Unfiltered 11-05-08

WHY I VOTED FOR BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN

By Nick Gier (nickgier@roadrunner.com)

Never has a national ticket [McCain/Palin] been less
equipped intellectually, temperamentally, and practically
to confront America's problems than this one.

--Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University

An Illinois politician was running for president, and another unsuccessful candidate for that office said that his "experience in elective office consisted of eight years in his state legislature in Springfield, and one term in Congress, during which he showed courage and wisdom to oppose the invasion of another country.

"He was known chiefly as a clear thinker and a great orator, with a passion for justice and a determination to heal the deep divisions of our land. He insisted on reaching past partisan and regional divides to exalt our common humanity."

In this speech at the 2008 Democratic Convention, Al Gore was not referring to Barack Obama but to Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican Party. The parallels are not only dramatic and ironic (Lincoln freed the ancestors of African slaves) but deeply instructive.

Both Lincoln and Obama were brilliant attorneys. For twelve years Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, a law school known for its conservative professors such as current Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia.

Michael McConnell, another conservative colleague of Scalia's and now federal appellant judge appointed by George W. Bush, was so impressed by the way Obama edited one of his articles for the Harvard Law Review that he recommended Obama to the Chicago faculty.

Obama's student evaluations ranged from "positive to superlative," and liberal students were disappointed in not finding doctrinaire confirmation of their views. Mary Ellen Callahan, now a Washington, D. C. attorney, remembered Obama as "offending my liberal instincts."

The Chicago law faculty offered Obama a tenure track position, and his wife Michelle, also a graduate of Harvard Law School, was recruited as director of the legal clinic. They turned down these opportunities and chose to devote themselves to public service instead.

After eight years of sustained assault on our Constitution by an intellectually challenged president and devious advisors, we need a president who knows the Constitution well and who has argued on both sides of the most controversial issues.

As a bonus, Joe Biden has co-taught a course on constitutional law at Wiedner University School of Law since 1991. No attorney general will be able to pull a fast one on this executive team.

After 18 months of debate and close scrutiny, Obama has proved himself as intelligent and calm, and, as conservative commentator George Will observes, much more presidential than McCain.

Christopher Buckley, son of America's most famous conservative William F. Buckley, applauds Obama for his "first class intellect and first-class temperament." It was McCain's own military and political associates who first called him erratic and temperamental, and the campaign has drawn out these character flaws.

During the presidential debates, as Americans got a closer look at the candidates, Obama's favorable ratings have gone up while McCain's and Palin's have dropped, the lowest ever for a vice-presidential candidate, even Dan Quayle. Many GOP leaders and conservatives have deserted because of McCain's bad judgment in choosing Palin.

The GOP plan to capture the Hillary vote with Palin has failed miserably. In a recent ABC-Washington Post poll 59 percent of independent women viewed Palin unfavorably, while Obama's favorable ratings are as high as 62 percent, the highest in 38 years of polling.

Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrook describes Obama's success in the debates: "Obama showed that he could handle the frontal assaults of an aggressive and seasoned senator-war hero in the very area McCain was perceived to be the strongest. Obama offered the larger vision of the nation—and a reassuring sense he would approach issues with the seriousness they required."

Readers of Parade magazine, certainly not a leftist journal, said that on the virtue of self-control, they favored Obama over McCain 64 to 36 percent. On the issue of strong moral compass Obama stood at 60 percent. With regard to "a gift for inspiring others," Obama won 69 to 31 percent.

The Bush administration has destroyed our credibility and moral standing in the world, and disapproval of U.S. policies is at its highest level ever. The U.S. can regain its political leadership in the world only if we have a president that inspires and instills confidence in nations that once admired us.

Only Barack Obama has the qualities to fulfill this essential task. Bush's first Secretary of State Colin Powell praises Obama for having "both style and substance. He is a transformational character."

The Economist magazine, known for its firm belief in free markets and free trade, would have endorsed McCain for president. But their editors are dismayed at McCain's dirty campaign tactics and his choice of an unqualified vice-presidential candidate.

The Economist has set up a world vote for U.S. president and they have assigned electoral votes according to each nation's population. The last count by some of the world's best informed people shows a tsunami of 9,115 electoral votes for Obama and 203 for McCain. The only country where a majority has voted for McCain is Iraq.

The McCain campaign is making much of Obama's comments that it is good to spread the wealth around. Since Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers in 1981 and employers were emboldened to undermine union organizing, real income for America's working families has stagnated. If their productivity, still the highest in the world, would have been rewarded as it was from 1947-1980, the minimum wage would now be $19.12.

Because of Bush's tax cuts, economic inequality in the U.S. is now at its widest spread since the Gilded Age of the 1890s. Independent calculations show that middle class America would actually receive three times more in tax cuts under Obama's plan than under McCain's. If our economy will allow it, Obama is right that 95 percent of Americans, including Joe the Plummer, would receive a tax cut.

Leaving Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy in place, McCain would continue the discredited policy of "trickle-down" economics, which has spread wealth to the top. As one of my friends explains: "Obama believes in a bottom-up theory, that wealth distributed among the masses results in an uplifted economy." It's high time that working Americans are rewarded for their high productivity.

The worst result of McCain's Bush-Reagan mantra "no new taxes" is that the non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates that a McCain/Palin administration would add another $8.5 trillion to the national debt, twice as much as Obama would.

While Sarah Palin was meeting a few world leaders for the first time at the UN last month, Joe Biden has discussed international issues with scores of them for 36 years. He has special expertise on Russia and Eastern Europe, areas that will be of special concern in the near future. As a close confidante of Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili, Biden was invited to that country for consultations right after the short war with Russia.

McCain is now calling on voters to choose him because a Congress dominated by Democrats is bad for the country. I, to the contrary, would like the following bills to become law without a threat of a presidential veto: the Women's Free Choice Act so that abortions are earlier and safer, the Employees Free Choice Act to build up our unions again, tax credits for solar and wind power, substantial investment in our crumbling infrastructure, and trade policies that protect the freedom and health of world's workers.

Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. Read all of his election columns at www.NickGier.com. [End of article]