In 40 years of voting, I don't think I have ever voted for a Republican, and yet I do not know what I will do in November. But I do know now that I will not vote for Obama. That is a position I have come to gradually. His is the rare case where the more I learn about a person, the less I like him. After the first bunch of primaries I still would have supported Obama, even though I found his campaign tactics troubling. A great rousing speech is a wonderful and cathartic thing, but I was troubled by the lack of substance and the almost total reliance on emotional rhetoric, urging vast audiences of worshipful followers to simply "Believe." I felt uneasy about the rote repetition of "Change You Can Believe In" without any indication of how or what he would do to bring it about (other than televising it on C-Span). I found the relentless appeal to unthinking emotionalism and the campaign videos empty of content reminiscent of an earlier era, one that we should not want to emulate. That was the beginning.
But then when Hillary Clinton attempted to counter his contentless rhetoric by pointing out that even the great Martin Luther King knew that he needed not just rhetoric but laws and a President who could push them through, Obama let loose his dogs to call her a racist and refused to disavow the charge. That's when, since no one in the media seemed to have anything to say about his record, I started to look at it. With the Internet, it doesn't take much digging. Of course I found the "Present" votes, the Rezko deal, the Exelon episode, the disconnect between his early speech against the war and his actual votes on it, the failures to stand up when it would have taken courage, like his "Present" vote on MoveOn, while Hillary voted not to censure, and his vote for the lard-soaked energy bill. But I might have overlooked even all that and chalked him up as just another politician, mostly liberal, not particularly brave, unwilling to take risks, and looking for power and influence.
But it got worse. There was the growing reliance on divisiveness, usually through campaign surrogates, while claiming to be an agent of unity. There were the hoards of Obama fanatics using the Internet to shout down - or ban - anyone who dared to disagree about their darling. There was the successful attempt to remove Hillary supporters from CNN while having his surrogates covertly push his own candidacy there. There was the disingenuous willingness to overdramatize any kind of momentary advantage like the ludicrously non-representative caucus win in Iowa or the victory in South Carolina, while declaring that his losses were meaningless, thus attempting to marginalize all who don't support him while claiming to be the one person who can bring us together. And again there were his surrogates calling his opponent racist simply because she asked for the support of Hispanics, for whom she has sought fair treatment for many years, while he has done nothing for them. Consistently this man who poses as a change agent uses racist charges to advance himself.
And then, and perhaps most tragically, there is the failure, time and time again, by this man who claims to be better and newer and than, well, practically everybody, to disavow the viciously sexist attacks on a decent woman, a woman he grudgingly calls "likable enough" and who he turned his back on when she offered her hand after the State of the Union address, a woman who has worked all her life for progressive causes, a woman who for decades has fought for children and for the voiceless, a woman whose words were banned in China when she dared to say that women's rights are human rights. And, too, there is the chilling attempt to take advantage of those sexist attacks on her by echoing them in his rhetoric with coded phrases like "claws out."
His cowardly silence is an offense against all women, even those who foolishly support him, and it is an unforgivable offense in a world where there are still countries where a woman can't vote; where a woman's word in court is half a man's or nothing at all; where a woman can't go outside without a bag over her head; where girl children are mutilated or killed at birth; where women who go out in public are confined to segregated areas; where teachers who dare to teach girls may be killed; where mass rape is used as a political strategy; where polygamy is common, where a woman who has been raped is expected to kill herself or be killed by her family. Obama's willingness to take advantage of such hatred when it comes out to support him here at home is enough alone to disqualify him for the presidency.
And then there is his inconsistent and blatantly anti-democratic position on which delegates should be counted and which should not. Unlike much of his race-baiting, this example comes not from his surrogates but from his own mouth. He told Politico that we should not count Florida and Michigan because it would be wrong to change the rules (even though the rules seem to have been set up to give him an advantage); but at the same time in the same interview he said we should throw away the rules and not count the superdelegates because counting them would go against the will of the people. The only votes he wants to count are the ones that go his way. So here is a black man - one who has led a privileged life of private schools and exclusive opportunities that most black men cannot even dream of, who let a lobbyist help him buy a $1.9M house for $1.6M, whose principal backers are a wealthy elite - arguing to disenfranchise working-class voters who cast ballots in perfectly fair primaries. This is especially true of Florida, a state where elderly voters and African-Americans in large numbers had their votes hijacked in 2000, a state where this year both Clinton and Obama (as well as Edwards) were on the ballot with an equal chance to get votes and where all of the candidates refrained equally from campaigning (although Obama did make one public appearance to the media), and where 1.7 million people cast ballots, which Obama now wants to throw in the trash.
We have truly entered the world of Orwell if this "I have the ability to bring people together" man can get away with posing as an agent of change.
And right now at this very moment he has his surrogates at MoveOn - those are the ones who did the blink-and-you-missed-it poll of their members, most of whom, including me, had no chance to vote - trying to get people to petition against the superdelegates, who are the heart of the Democratic party.
I say to Obama and his surrogates: No! No, I won't vote for you! I will work as hard as I can to stop you.
I say to Hillary, Yes! I will stand up for you! I will fight for you!
I say to all thinking women, and all good men: If not now, when?
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