Why I am Voting For Barack Obama

Super Tuesday is almost here and here in California, we have 370 delegates up for grabs.

I usually vote democrat and have been leaning one way based on my gut instincts. But before the primaries I thought it was time to get off my butt and look at the real differences between the candidates, and make sure my gut was right. I think it was.

I’m voting for Barack Obama, and I’ll tell you why.

First off, I just like him. I really like him. And I trust him to boot. He seems to be the first politician I have seen in, well, forever, that appears more interested in doing what is right, even if it is unpopular because doing what is right is, well, the right thing to do.

Clinton keeps trying to point up his lack of experience, and I know that is at least not entirely fair.

I have to admit, even though Clinton wouldn’t say such things out loud, that just being the wife of a president, living IN the White House for years, being the person that the Prez talks things over with on a nightly basis (when he wasn’t sleeping on the couch) probably IS a really helpful thing when it comes to stepping into the Oval Office on “Day One”. It would sure make the learning curve easier to manage. But, nearly every President in American History has been a newbie in the west wing and there are systems in place to help the new team catch onto how things work quickly.

I believe almost every politician starts out wanting to make a change, do good things for America, and fully believes they won’t be corrupted by the system. But then they learn that to get things done in politics, you have to kind of allow yourself to be corrupted. Usually, by the time someone is experienced enough to become president, they have been corrupted. I don’t believe Obama has been. And I am more than fascinated to see what happens with an uncorrupted person in the white house.

Just imagine.

When it comes to Iraq, he was rallying against it just as I was back then, and verbally stated about the idea of going to war in Iraq, “I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”

When it comes to health care in America, I actually like Clinton’s plan better. I believe that we should eventually have a system in which every American is covered, rather than Obama’s plan that everyone who WANTS insurance will be able to get it. With Obama’s plan, people like the homeless, and those oh-so-invincible twenty-something’s will never get insurance.

But I don’t feel that Clinton’s plan can be paid for the way she says she will pay for it. The largest chunk of it, I think it was 77 billion, would come from converting all hospitals to electronic file systems (Obama wants to do that too, but not as the basis for paying for his health plan). Well, that is all well and good, but it will take a LONG time to get all the hospitals up to date, help the poor places pay for those systems, and then there will be the time that passes waiting for that system to not just pay for itself but to start paying dividends that can go toward universal health coverage. I just don’t think that will work. Not in time.

Mr. Obama would pay for his plan (which is a good plan, but doesn't get us to universal coverage) by allowing President Bush’s tax cuts for the most affluent Americans — those making over $250,000 a year — to expire. Officials estimated that the net cost of the plan to the federal government would be $50 billion to $65 billion a year, when fully phased in. There is the money, right there.

Lastly, I go back to what I said in the first place.

I like him.

He feels authentic. He feels like the real thing. I feel like he is not lying to me.

I was not alive when Kennedy was around, and I usually hate when folks compare people to JFK, the Beatles, Ghandi, or whomever. I don’t know if Obama is anything like John F. Kennedy, really. But I am getting the feeling that the way Barack Obama inspires me is similar to the way Kennedy inspired people of his generation.

So I am voting for Obama on Tuesday.

Either way it goes, I have to say that I am really excited that our country is finally in a place where they are seriously considering putting a woman or an African-American in the White House.

That feels really good.