Yet again, I wish that the policy proposals of the candidates would be properly covered. To be fair, I could easily look up their platform on their campaign websites, but it is the newspaper's purpose to provide key information. It was only today that I found something truly concrete -- in the Feb. 19 New York Times lead editorial:
The Democrats, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, have unveiled pieces of an urban agenda. Each has pledged to fight poverty by increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps millions of working families and has not been increased in 15 years. They would each ensure increases in the minimum wage. Mr. Obama would peg it to the cost of living; Mrs. Clinton would increase it every time members of Congress get a raise. Both would spend on job training and placement, and both have plans to expand health insurance.It would be too good to be true if the newspapers and news shows would actually discuss the present state of taxation, and where its inegalities and inadequacies lie. With a little effort the subject should not be too dry for the reader, and it would address the real benefit of the voter much more than insignificant primary statistics, e.g. that n per cent of middle-aged, white, Christian women voted for Hillary Clinton in Nebraska.
The political procedure itself is discouragingly flawed. There is the farce that was the Democratic primary in Michigan, for example; firstly, it "did not count" because it was held before Feb. 5th in defiance of the national party headquarters, and, secondly, the ballots carried only the names of Hillary Clinton and three minor candidates (Dennis Kucinich, Christopher Dodd, and Mike Gravel). More importantly, there are the superdelegates; it seems so undemocratic to me that they can vote according only to their personal tastes, and thereby significantly influence the election without needing to respect the preferences of the voters. Of course a few of them (like the congresswoman from Washington, D.C. who recently appeared on the Colbert Report) have stated that they will vote according to the determination of their constituents, but then there are those like the former presidential candidate Walter Mondale and New York State governor Elliot Spitzer, who have already declared their support for Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton's lobbying of the superdelegates epitomizes, I think, why she should not become the presidential candidate: she is content to be a cog in the political machine, and she manoeuvres for power within the establishment, instead of openly and freely letting her platform and competence recommend themselves, to her constituents as well as her colleagues. She is, I'd say, running her campaign like a skilled lawyer who knows the political apparatus and its regulations in great detail, and how to use them to her advantage, but she ignores the spirit of the law that should inform the whole.
Barack Obama, however, does and says as he sees fit without slavish deference to political expediency (though, in the course of his campaigning, he has become careful). As far as I can tell, he is not running for office merely for the sake of the office, but because he genuinely wants to improve government policy and restore America in the opinion of the world. His rhetoric may occasionally be repetitive and vague, but I think that his ideas are sound; at the very least, if he is a decent president and worthy of respect, he will help the chances of a fine successor to the office. And, since there is such a strong desire to repair the damage that Bush has wrought, and since he is personally hugely popular, I am sure that many of the best experts in interior and foreign policy are eager to work for him -- and he is open to differing points of view as Bush was not. He is even more likely to win against John McCain than Hillary Clinton is, according to a poll that came out on Feb. 2nd.
But I do worry that, because he is relatively young, he could still end up being corrupted by the political establishment. He might prove similar to Tony Blair; in my opinion, Blair was idealistic when he became Prime Minister, but he succumbed to bad influences, parted with his soul somewhere en route to Iraq, and thenceforth did everything for money and power while pretending that he is doing it for the soundest moral reasons. But I think that Obama's ego is neither as large nor as vulnerable as Blair's, and that it was Blair's ego that was his Achilles' heel. If Blair had openly invaded Iraq for the self-serving reasons that he had, he would at least still have been honest; but, since he was desperate to keep his own good opinion, he started lying to himself and everyone else, and became completely morally bankrupt. (From his face I surmise that he still has a conscience, but it has no active role in his governance and is now devoted solely to slowly eating away at him from the inside).
If Hillary Clinton does become President, I wouldn't see it as a catastrophe because she is extremely capable, which would already be a great relief after Bush's incompetence. But, as I've already said, I doubt that she would really improve the state of the country because she is too entrenched in its present state. Also, I think that she is inclined to be "tough," and, if this quality is exerted in her foreign policy, it could be as bad as the present unilateralism of "diplomats" who are too stupid, solipsistic,* and hypocritical to merit the name.
* I learned that word a week or two ago. (c:
Sources: "The Spat," by Hendrik Hertzberg (New Yorker, Feb. 11)
"Who Is More Electable?", by Nicholas D. Kristof (New York Times, Feb. 7)
P.S.: February 15th was the fifth anniversary of the first big wave of worldwide demonstrations against the War in Iraq.
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