I have yet to see anyone consider what this race would look like if Obama hadn’t reneged on his pledge to take public campaign funding. It’s pretty important, I think.
The first and easiest notion is that he wouldn’t be staring at half-hour commercial on 3 networks tomorrow night, preempting even the World Series (it would be so great if the game was postponed for weather again). He wouldn’t be able to electronically canvass the country the way he is. A minor point is that he wouldn’t have monthly process stories about how he’s raised unprecedented amounts of money.
What disturbs me most is how he broke a promise, then blamed someone else (the funds raised by the RNC). So how do we know he won’t get into office, enact the tax plan he proposed, then say, “After looking at all the evidence, the lives of middle class Americans, we’ve seen an even greater needs in our hardest workers – and it’s the responsibility of those of us who have to come to the aid of those who have not,” and then raise taxes on everyone making more than $50,000 to give cash payments to those who make less?
I find his blatant dishonesty…unsettling.
Spktruth2Pwr
See this article below.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1842030,00.html
You beef up Obama’s plan to not take public funding and use it to attack his sincerity. I could go on the offensive now and say the same about McCain. However I will not do that because I feel it distorts the point. My true point is that:
We are all human, thus we are all fallible.
Whether we feel it was right or wrong of Obama to speak on taking public funding or not is a point we can disagree on, but is it really all of that to embellish the magnitude of this? If that is the case, then no one is up to the task of running our country or credible enough to usher in a new politics.
No, what Obama has meant by a new politic was simply this: to involve the people that he is supposed to represent. He decided that forgoing public financing would help him do this by asking for small donations of 100 or less from millions of Americans. He decided that saying yes WE can is the goal and not yes I can was the way to start reshaping politics.
It is yet to be seen what he will actually do now that he is elected, but do I believe he is sincere in his desires? Yes I do. And it is not because of my belief that he is the messiah gone to Washington to deliver what no Republican or Democratic leader has done before. It is because I know he has energized more of the populace to believe they can have an impact on the nature of government.
New politics will be Americans being more active in their government and not simply believing it is the responsibility of one person to deliver a stronger nation.
I will follow your blog though, because I believe it is always good to have great discourse with someone whose views are not like your own. I encourage you check out my blog and do the same.
Oh and do not call yourself an Uncle Tom. The problem with the stigma of being a Black Republican is that your own people “label” you a sell out. Don’t give it power by utilizing it either satirically or honestly.
Charles
Since this appears to be a column rather than an article, I’ll take it as such, and the positions within it as opinion.
For instance, it’s interesting that the article ignores the deceiving Spanish-language ad that Obama ran, twisting the words of Rush to sound as though he hates Hispanics, and tying McCain to it.
I wasn’t attacking Obama’s sincerity, but his integrity, and there are plenty of reasons for it:
He went to Trinity UCC for 20 years. He said Rev. Wright was his mentor, someone close to him. He quoted sermons in his books. He cites him as a major influence in his conversion. When the video and audio first came out, he said it was out of context. Then he said he hadn’t heard any of that rhetoric before. Then he said he couldn’t “disown Rev. Wright any more than…the black community.” Then, when it didn’t go away, he said that the man in the video wasn’t the man he knew. But the rev hadn’t changed, he was always that way. Then he said he wouldn’t leave the church because Wright wasn’t there any more. Then when Pfleger got going, he “resigned” from the church. Did he cite some realization? an epiphany? No. He blamed the political pressure.
He said in his acceptance speech that he wouldn’t attack his opponents character. But he had just spent 15 or 20 minutes doing so. Then he went on to allow his campaign to do so.
He told senior citizens that McCain wanted to gamble their SS on the stock market, and that he would force privatization. Bot are lies.
This isn’t about fallibility, this is about character and integrity. Things he didn’t show during his campaign.
Your paragraph about involving the people and “yes WE can” is eloquent, but unmoving. What his decision showed was that it was more important to him to win than to honor his word. Taking the public money wouldn’t have been saying “yes I can”, it would have been saying that on an even playing field we can win with honor.
But he didn’t. He took the money and ran.
I’m in favor of people being more involved in government, but in order to do that, power has to be decentralized, so that city councilors and county officers have the ability change their communities without federal obstruction. Obama is encouraging people to look for handouts.
What you describe certainly would be a new politic, but I don’t think it’s something we’re going to see any time soon. And President-Elect Obama is making that clearer with every appointment to his staff.