Diary Of A Mad Voter: Jessica Peck Corry

Obama Is Not King

By Jessica Peck Corry, 6-05-08

With reporters gushing from coast to coast, Barack Obama announced late Tuesday that he has finally—after a lengthy battle with Hillary Clinton—secured the Democratic presidential nomination.  Media fawning has now turned to the prospect of Obama as the first black president and this generation’s Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a speech designed to imitate King’s famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, Obama was at his eloquent best on Tuesday night. King declared then, “Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!”

Obama also covered his geographic bases, expressing an eagerness in his speech to “thank every American who stood by us. . . through the good days and the bad; from the snows of Cedar Rapids to the sunshine of Sioux Falls.”

But while King dreamed of an America that could one day judge his children based on the content of their character—and not the color of their skin—Obama should not be seen as the dream of a color-blind America realized.

Obama has talked about expanding socialized programs for every major facet of American life, including higher education, health care, and housing. He aims to perpetuate—and expand—a welfare state that has made minorities disproportionately dependent on government while ignoring real opportunities for reform.  He sees more government, and not less, as the solution to our problems. While Obama may have the flair of King, his recycled policies belong somewhere in Jimmy Carter’s stagnant 1970’s.

Obama attempted to draw a contrast between himself and Republican nominee John McCain. Calling into question McCain’s ideological similarities to President George W. Bush, Obama used his message of “change” to suggest that McCain is incapable of meaningful reform.

“It’s not change when [McCain] offers four more years of Bush economic policies that have failed to create well-paying jobs, or insure our workers, or help Americans afford the skyrocketing cost of college—policies that have lowered the real incomes of the average American family, widened the gap between Wall Street and Main Street, and left our children with a mountain of debt,” Obama said, while also attacking McCain’s continued support for the Iraq War.

But what does Obama offer? While his rhetoric is appealing, he lacks even a basic understanding of free market economics.  First, it is not government’s job to create jobs.  It is government’s job to cut red tape that prevents small business families like my own from creating jobs. Second, it is not the government’s job to insure our workers.  It is the government’s job to cut red tape that prevents meaningful opportunities for working families to secure lower-cost and better-serviced health insurance.  And finally, the government’s top priority should not be shelling out more money to help subsidize the rising cost of education.  Rather, its first educational reform goal should be to take on the establishment, cutting the administrative waste that has allowed our campuses to become havens for wasteful spending.

And when it comes to the war, Obama may not like what he sees, but he has failed to provide a meaningful contrast—or vehicle for change—during his short U.S. Senate tenure.

Refusing to let Obama’s lack of facts get in the way, reporters continue to focus on Obama’s historic moment as the Democratic Party’s first black presidential candidate. A Denver Post report proclaimed that “Obama’s clinching of the nomination, which comes 45 years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, will probably be remembered as one of the significant moments in American political history, up there with the election of John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president; women’s suffrage; the 15th Amendment’s guarantee that all men have the right to vote; and the civil rights movement.”

While it may be nice for a moment to pause to recognize the symbolism of Obama’s candidacy, we’ve got a lot of work to do as a nation to get ourselves out of the hole dug by a deficit-spending George W. Bush and a Democratic-controlled Congress.  Obama’s empty platitudes will not take us to a better place.  We know little about his economic policies other than the fact that he supports tax increases and bigger government.

As Hillary Clinton is now forced to pine for a vice presidential bid, it is her reference to Obama as “elitist and divisive,” that best describes his views on America.  This is, after all, the man who condemned gun-owning and religious Americans as “bitter.”

As Americans, we all know Rev. King and his legacy well.  And quite frankly, Sen. Obama, you are no Rev. King. Especially not in an era when the last thing we need in the struggle for freedom is more government, tax increases, and deficit spending.

Editor’s note: Jessica Peck Corry’s weekly blogs are part of NewWest.Net/Politics’ “Diary of a Mad Voter” feature, a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. For more columns check in with www.newwest.net/madvoter. And for more information on each of the bloggers, click here.

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