A Once-Reluctant Gal Rolls the Dice on Obama

by Deb Cupples |   By now, most people likely know whether they're voting for Barack Obama or John McCain today.  I didn't decide until August, just before the Democratic Convention.

During the primaries, I supported Hillary Clinton.  Even her impressive plea back in June for her supporters to vote for Obama didn't move me.  Why?  Because I am genuinely troubled by some of Obama's stances. 

The reason it was easy for me to vote for Obama this past Saturday: I am even more troubled by McCain.

I didn't like Obama's vote on FISA in July, for example.  McCain didn't even show up for the vote, but I got the sense that he supported Telecom Amnesty. 

I didn't like the way that Obama flip-flopped on NAFTA after he won the primary.  McCain's position is similar (pro-free trade). 

In June, Obama publicly professed his love for the so-called "Free Market" (aka, the "anti-accountability market").  Given my research on corporate corruption, that was like acid in my stomach -- even before our credit markets started melting down, which happened partly because of the anti-accountability climate that flourished under President Bush. 

Ever since McCain started running for president this time around, he's been honking the "Free Market" horn.

Despite all that, I had no trouble whatsoever bubbling in the circle by Obama's name.  Why? Partly because I don't recognize John McCain anymore. 

Don't get me wrong: I don't think he's a carbon copy of George Bush.  I mean, the guy did vote against Bush's corporate tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 (or thereabout).  McCain took major heat from his party for doing it.  He also worked to push public corporations to expense stock options (though the efforts didn't succeed).

That said, I find it most disturbing that McCain publicly proclaimed that our economy was fine just weeks before the meltdown started.  I find it disturbing that McCain recently embraced George Bush's ideas about tax cuts for big corporations and hyper-wealthy individuals.  I find it disturbing that McCain wants to heavily rely on private industry to solve our nation's health care crisis -- the same private interests that contributed to skyrocketing health care costs.

Here's the worst part for me: even after we taxpayers committed more than $1 trillion to bailing out corporations whose executives recklessly endangered their companies and our nation's economy, the best John McCain could do was shriek about "re-distribution of wealth."

Apparently, Sen. McCain is blind to the irony.

Truckloads of tax dollars are being re-distributed to some of the very corporations that helped cause our recent economic meltdown. 

Congress and the Bush Administration refused to promote accountability by refusing to put strict conditions to how the money can be spent. 

Not surprisingly, the New York Times reported just last week that executives at some companies who've received bailout funds (i.e., welfare checks) have decided to not use the funds for their intended purpose -- which is to unfreeze credit markets by lending more money to businesses, individuals, and other banks.

Just last week, the Associated Press reported that some banks who've received bailout funds (i.e., welfare checks)  are planning to use some of the bailout funds to give out executive bonuses and employee raises.

What's that but a re-distribution of wealth?  And the bitterest irony is that some of those execs and employees had already re-distributed masses of shareholder wealth to themselves -- even as said execs and employees drove their companies into a ditch.

Under the Bush Administration, socialism has soared -- it has just largely benefited  super-wealthy individuals, partly via the corporations they run.

McCain seems to agree with the Bush-style notion that we should privatize profits (for wealthy folks' benefit) but socialize losses (again, for wealthy folks' benefit).

There is absolutely no principle, sensibility, or fairness underlying such thinking.  And that is what scares me most about John McCain.

Me, I want our politicians to actually find real solutions to our nation's overwhelmingly enormous problems (especially the economic ones).

For that reason, I think our best bet is to roll the dice on Barack Obama. And that's just what I did.

Other Buck Naked Politics Posts:

* Alan Grayson and Tim Cunha for Congress

* Cutting Executive Pay Would Save Jobs

* Lehman Execs Redistribute Shareholder Wealth (to Themselves)

* AIG Execs Redistribute Shareholder Wealth (to Themselves)

* Execs Made Millions While Driving Companies into Ditch

* Are Bailout Funds Being Misused?

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Comments

[Charles]

You did well, Deb.

The people who love Obama seem to be mostly new voters. Most people who aren't in this for the first time are pragmatists. We do not love Obama, but we love our country. We don't want someone as temperamentally and intellectually unprepared as John McCain or Sarah Palin to be in the position to do the kind of damage that Bush did. We know Obama will make mistakes and disappoint us. But much better that than the alternative.

Here's hoping Florida turns blue this Election Day.

[James Stripes]

I trusted the Clintons to bring real health care reform when they expressed it as a top priority in 1992. Their failure is ancient history now, but it was one of the reasons I could never get enthusiastic about Hillary. She grew on me through the primary season, and reading your posts here helped soften my hostility.

I remained and remain strongly in support of Obama. Even so, I share some of your reservations about some of his positions, and I don't trust him to be honest. But, I think that he has the ability to reach across some of the fractured coalitions in American politics and bring a fresh approach to commonsense reforms that are strongly opposed by entrenched interests. If he flip-flops along the way on things like NAFTA, it might be read as an open mind and willingness to compromise on issues beyond his control in order to achieve the things that remain possible.

As Cornel West expressed several years ago: I'm not optimistic, but I still have hope.

[Deb Cupples (Buck Naked Politics)]

Hi James,

How are you?

A year after Bill Clinton took office, the Republicans took over the House.

I suspect this had something to do with the Clintons' failure to fix our health care system.