As an Undecided voter please tell me about Obama's Good Judgment

What I'm wondering when I see Obama's stances is where is my damn cheeseburger?

 

As someone supporting Hillary, for at least another day, I will weigh in.

First, Obama didn't vote for or against the invasion of Iraq as he wasn't in the US Senate at the time. He spoke out against it but he wasn't in a position to actually cast that vote. Further he is on record saying that if he was in the US senate at the time he isn't completely sure how he would vote. To Obama's credit I've never heard him say he voted against it while his opponents voted for it but his campaign rhetoric and his supporters have often obfuscated this difference to give the impression that his opposition to the war in 2002 is equivalent to Clinton, McCain and Edwards' vote for the authorizing resolution. It isn't anymore than me writing a letter to a newspaper editorial board is equivalent to a US Senate vote.

Clinton and Obama's positions aren't that different and if you compare the time they have spent in the Senate their records are fairly similar what I would point out as the key differences in regard to Clinton and Obama is their histories and how much time they have been in the public eye. Obama was essentially unknown outside of IL until 2004 and has largely had a meteoric rise to prominence whereas we've had more than 16 years to evaluate Hillary Clinton. While a lot of what Hillary Clinton has done has been questionable and she certainly deserves to be faulted on some of the things she's done she has shown an ability to bounce back from crisis. Consider that when she first came to Senate the Senate Republican leadership, and some of the Democrats, threatened to marginalize her yet she has proven to be a fairly effective Senator and has delivered for her consituency. Obama has never had that sort of target on his back and his career has been pretty much a steady rise. There is little sense of how he would react in a crisis.

At the same time what is coming out about Obama's history should make people pause. While nothing so far has come out that would automatically rule him out there are many things that show that he is far from the political messiah that many of his supporters make him out to be. His practice of voting 'present' on many votes along with even casting a mistaken vote on issues that he and his constituents considered important are definately things that should be considered. His appropriation of Patrick Deval's speech without acknowledgement, until called on it, on a speech particularly about the power of rhetoric points towards being sloppy. While he's admitted he's made a boneheaded mistake getting in a land deal with Rezko he's yet to fully explain what his relationship is with him. All of these are important to evaluating his character since his history at the national level is fairly scant.

While I don't think Obama will be a disaster I don't know if Obama is destined for greatness as many presume. Looking at his history I don't think that should be guarenteed. While Clinton seems unlikely to rise to greatness either my own opinion is I have a much better feel for how she will be as president but Obama seems like much more of a gamble.

 

Can someone list Obama's accompishments as a U.S. Senator? I'm not asking this in a condescending way. I'm being totally sincere. Because it seems to me like his entire Senatorial career thus far has been nothing more than a springboard to a Presidential run.

For all the b****ing Dems(and some Republicans) do about Bush, Obama seems eerily similar to the guy. Both are relatively inexperienced, seemingly likable politicians who are running on a platform of bringing change to Washington and uniting the country after an extended period of extreme partisanship.

Now I don't subscribe to the notion that Bush is the worst President ever or even in recent memory(that honor goes to Jimmy Carter in a landslide). But as a fiscal conservative, I do believe GOP voters got sold a bill of goods with Bush since he's been an ultraliberal when it comes to spending(the "economic stimulus" package being the latest debacle).

And I haven't seen anything to suggest that the same couldn't happen with Obama. And he's already bad enough IMO since we know going in he's fiscally liberal.

 

Like Bill Clinton? Who ran on "change" himself and actually accomplished it, running large budget surpluses and balancing the budget? And before anyone says, "well, Bill Clinton has the booming economy helping him do it," don't tell me he doesn't deserve credit for it. He could have easily made a cockup of the economy, regardless of the underlying factors. As you point out, look at the cockup supposed "conservative" George W. Bush has made of our economy. Bill Clinton was far more economically conservative than Bush has proven to be. And Bill Clinton was a Democratic President.




Impeach Bush and Save Us from Canada!

 

This is a bit of a dubious question in that Obama is a first term Senator and he's spent over a year of that term now campaigning for President. He co-authored legislation on nuclear non-proliferation. He co-authored the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. He introduced the Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act which later passed as the Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act. In Illinois he got a law passed requiring the police to tape all interrogations and confessions. I believe this was after the Governor of Illinois suspended the death penalty there because of the number of people on death row that were found to have been wrongfully convicted. Obama has accomplishments, certainly if he were a 20 year Senator he'd have far more.

 

Wow, I see your point Trader Jorge and now I will vote for John McCain.

 

Two things that should be noted with Bill Clinton:

1) He had a GOP congress for 3/4 of his time in office. They had more than a little to do with the balanced budgets and restrictions on spending. If you're gonna give credit to Clinton, also acknowledge what Newt and Co. did. The reason I mention this is that Obama will have a Dem congress if he's elected.

2) Clinton was Governor of Arkansas for over a decade before running for President. Yes it's a small state, but that's considerably more experience than Obama can claim right now.


Oh and on a side note, do you blame Clinton for the recession he handed Bush in 2001?

 

I've listed some of his accomplishments before, and I copied this from another thread.

1. he co-sponsored the "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act" introduced by Sen. John McCain

2 & 3. Partnering first with Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN), and then with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Obama successfully introduced two initiatives bearing his name. "Lugar-Obama" expands the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles and anti-personnel mines.[61] The "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act" provides for the web site USAspending.gov, managed by the Office of Management and Budget.

4. He sponsored the "Iran Sanctions Enabling Act" supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran's oil and gas industry,[73] and joined Chuck Hagel (R-NE) in introducing legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism.[74] A provision from the Obama-Hagel bill was passed by Congress in December 2007 as an amendment to the State-Foreign Operations appropriations bill.

5. Obama sponsored with Kit Bond (R-MO) an amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act

6. Obama's energy initiatives scored pluses and minuses with environmentalists, who welcomed his sponsorship with John McCain (R-AZ) of a climate change bill to reduce greenhouse gas

All of that and even more bipartisan examples from just two years in the Senate can be found at.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack...#109th_Congress

Those are just the bipartisan accomplishments. There are plenty of other things that he's done in just the two years he's been there as well.

 

Is the first one the amnesty bill that McCain tried to push through? If so, then that is definitely not a positive IMO. It's the same reason McCain has so many conservatives pissed off at him.

And is the 2nd one the McCain-Lieberman bill that would tack on 50 cents to a gallon of gasoline? If so, again that's not gonna make me want to support him.

 

In Illinois, the rules are a little bit different. "Present" votes are used strategically, either to create wiggle room to amend the bill or to protest it outright. In Illinois, "present" is initially the same as "no" since you need a certain number of "yes" votes to pass a bill. But by voting "present" instead of "no," the bill can be renegotiated. Read this article for a better explanation:

http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=274863

As for gay rights, he opposes gay marriage because he defines marriage as the union of a man and woman. But he does support civil unions (hence, more rights). He also voted against a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

 

You'd think that someone who was actually interesting in learning about a candidate would inquire about these things instead of reading snippets and making sweeping judgments, but apparently it seems much easier to take an issue that one doesn't fully understand and turn it into a talking point. I guess that's the easiest way to just confirm what one already wants to be believe.

 

1. No, it wasn't an amnesty bill, and you should also check out some of the amendments that Obama authored to add to the bill.

I'm not sure where the .50 a gallon to the avg. consumer comes from.

 

Clearly you didn't do your research. As noted by others, in the Illinois Senate, there is a purpose to voting Present. It's a strategic position - and everyone in the Senate uses it. It's not done to avoid taking a position. The fact that it tells you something otherwise is simply because you didn't bother to learn the facts.

You chose to take your interpretation based on how you think the Illinois legislature would work and run with it. If you were truly interested in learning more, you'd have asked "does anyone know why he would do this?" But that's not what you did. That's how it's clear you weren't an "undecided". Or if you were, you weren't interested in actually learning the facts. You had questions - which is fine - but then you sought out information to simply reinforce the fact that you had questions instead of seeking to answer them.

 

For what it's worth, I think this is perfectly legitimate reason to support Hillary. I just don't believe, based on the tone of your posts, that you were every truly undecided. You may have convinced yourself you were, but it was pretty clear a few days ago you were going to vote for Hillary.

 

It's fine if you don't trust Obama, or believe he'll reach out to work with the GOP, or that he'll say whatever people want to hear.

But there are many examples that would counter some of those arguments. I've posted a lot of examples of Obama working with the Republicans in just 2 years in the Senate.

He also made a principled stand that wasn't what his audience wanted to hear in Beaumont recently, by standing up against the bigotry against homosexuals, and did the same when speaking before Auto workers when he told them they needed to change their cars to make them more fuel efficient.

So there are examples of him not saying just what people want to hear.

But again you don't have to believe that those patterns would continue, and he is somewhat of an unkown in exactly what he'll do, so that's a reason why some might want to vote for Hillary.

 

You're so easily duped. Rocket River himself said that blacks will vote for Obama no matter what, so he had nothing to lose by saying that he didn't support homosexuals in front of them