Dealing with a Cooldown

Dear Blogosphere,

I support Barack Obama. I have given him a rather paltry political contribution through his web site, and I intend to vote for him in November. While I was initiating torn between Senators Clinton and Obama during the primary process, I became disenchanted with Hillary after hearing her criticisms of Obama after he had pulled out a lead in some primary contests. She started playing by the distasteful playbook of one and two election cycles ago, trying to be someone you want to have a beer with rather than someone who is savvy enough to run our country. She made some low blows, chimed in with antagonizers, fought over hypothetical delegates, and still refused to bow out to support her opponent in the long run.

I applauded Obama for being able to mobilize a lot of voters -- that he made his campaign a grassroots effort from the start. Despite being weatherbeaten by false accusations, rumors, smear efforts, and infighting, he clinched the nomination. Now it's down to two. Barack Obama and John McCain.

For a while, I felt very energized. I haven't watched this much news in... I can't recall when. (I've heard stories from my mom about being in the nursery and fussing if CNN wasn't playing in the background.) The point of a solid political process is to get people talking, I believe, and my co-workers and I would weigh the arguments and discuss what we thought was important. We all slaved for our tips so, like anyone else trying to stretch a buck, we would lament about gas prices and plan to go to the pier next door and have a beer less often. We challenged each other to stay up to date on current events and to share our findings.

I'm a liberal and I plan to stay that way as long as I can, even if it supposedly brings me more misery than good. Being a young professional in my 20's through the Bush presidency, lots of things have just run amok. Uncontrolled spending, a war built on lies, rising everything.

People like me -- we needed this. Once one rehashes just how jacked our country turned over the past two election cycles, you just have to look up.

Obama's campaign has kept me motivated and positive so far. I feel good for the most part. The most recent coverage about Obama's "flip-flops" is starting to wear on me because, when commentators and pundits go to task on the issue, the discourse eventually breaks down into the same old talking points. Now that Hillary has endorsed Obama and fences have been proverbially mended, I get a little tired of the irrelevant fodder. Now that the big battling controversies are done, I think most of the recent news coverage centers around relatively insignificant matters. The candidates are playing a lot of "gotcha!" right now.

Other than that, there has been a lot of hype about Obama shifting toward the center. During his presidential nomination process, he planted his feet firmly on the left wing and distinguished himself with some important policy statements on health care, tax burdens, environment, and energy policies. Now that he's representing the Blue side, he has had to demonstrate flexibility and revision to convince people across the aisle that he is competent to run the country.

I am concerned about commentators like Glenn Greenwald who have been fueling the fire of some of Obama's recent activity. A posting on Daily Kos shows quite a bit of up-in-arms. Greenwald is incredibly articulate, artful, and the cadre of posts plus updates is a little intimidating to pick about. Olbermann delivers it pretty straight, forceful, and thoughtful too. When they started slapping hands and cocks about their arguments, I just tuned out.

Let me put it this way.

While you two are arguing over this issue, how exactly is this contributing to choosing the right guy to run our country?

That's what I want to know.

I don't care which one of you has a larger intellectual penis. I just don't. Last I heard and cared about the FISA issue, the existing loophole permits criminal prosecution against telecommunications companies. Investigations will follow unless pardons start getting passed out like dinner mints. I trust that will happen when Obama gets to the White House, and that works for me. I think there is usefulness and purpose in pragmatism, but with so much crap going on right now, we Americans need to believe that something good lies in the near future. Between Obama and McCain, I think that Obama has more at stake and at interest in helping to correct some of the goings-wrong that have pervaded our current process.

Let me restate some simple points in brief:

Public campaign financing. You want a drop in the money bucket or full reign to use what your supporters have contributed in full?

FISA. Yes, I said that. You can write it down, record it on tape, or take a picture. I've got absolutely nothing to hide.

Flip-flops. Why isn't anyone talking about McCain's highly contradictory statements on oil, drilling, Social Security? Obama's coiled on three things. McCain's got, what, ten, twelve of 'em on record? Is it because the list is too long? Just pick three. You can easily pick three. Just put the damn things in a hat and bring it up to the man when he's standing in front of that God awful green backdrop.

I don't think Obama is politically invincible or even that much a salvation. I have chilled a bit. I don't think he's a fake, and I'm not calling him "every other politician." I'm not likening him to Kerry. I'm not saying "anything's better than McCain" (or Bush, since that likely applies). I'm still watching the news. I'm just watching less of it because I haven't been logging in quality time on the Internet to figure out just exactly what's going on. I hear it second- and third-handed and it's all starting to run together.

I'm still voting for Obama, folks.

I'm at that point when I have to turn off the TV or close the browser window because all this dissection isn't really getting us anywhere. Discourse should help clarify who you're going to vote for, right? Don't we need candidates and pundits and commentators to keep us informed? You have three choices in November. Obama. McCain. Or neither slash stay at home on the couch. And you need enough information -- not talking points, not gotchas, not bigger intellectual penis -- to make an informed decision. And I think once you have a good guess of who you're voting or not voting for, just lock it in. Make your choice because you believe in it. Keep an open ear. Keep the intellectual engagement, but if it gets into who's using the biggest word, then understand that there's nothing to gain.

Dan Rather had it right a couple of weeks ago! We're really hurting with gas prices and a dollar that doesn't seem to stretch as much. We hope that some cough syrup and chicken noodle soup can cure what ails us. If we can walk it off (illness and injury) or walk it on (working as much as we can), then that's the only way to survive. You can even love or hate the war. So long as you have a loved one shipped out overseas, you're praying that they don't come home in a body bag.

Let's get back to the issues.