speak to the people like barack obama

I'm pretty excited about tomorrow's Maryland primary. I've never cast a meaningful vote in my life:  grad school in New York, postdoc in California, 8 years in Massachusetts... not exactly the most hotly contested states in American politics.  I'll be voting for Barack Obama. 

That isn't because of any horrible flaws in Hillary Clinton.  She strikes me as a solid, hard-working and deeply intelligent woman who would make a fine President.  She has perservered in the face of decades of the most repugnant, dishonest attacks - which I've been sorry to see many Democrats embrace in the overheated primary season.  She's above the bar.  But Obama is a potential superstar. 

Obama impresses me not simply because of his early criticism of the Iraq war at a time when this was politically risky. He impresses me because he genuinely seems to understand the reasons why Iraq turned into a fiasco, the reasons why the Bush administration's foreign policy more broadly went so disastrously awry.  He really seems to understand why America's indefinite commitments in Iraq are counterproductive and debilitating, while thinking carefully about how to disengage.  Where Clinton essentially proposes to tinker at the edges, to do the same basic things more professionally, Obama offers a genuinely different approach to the core problems of world politics.  The early exchange over dialogues with our strategic rivals like Iran really captured it:  Clinton's approach was politically safe but strategically wrong, while Obama courageously fleshed out a politically risky but strategically much savvier stance.   

I think that Obama will be by far the stronger candidate in a general election against McCain.  But I don't really know.  I'm voting for him because is a genuinely inspirational figure, because his approach to foreign affairs is fundamentally sound, and because he has the chance to fundamentally transform the American and international political landscape.  I know perfectly well that others disagree, and I respect their reasons (well, most of them - in some cases, their criticism of Obama only strengthens his appeal).  I really don't want this site to get dragged in to domestic political battles.  But I'm excited to have the chance to finally cast a vote that counts for the first time in my life, and for that vote to be for some about whom I'm genuinely excited.

UPDATE:  ... well, I voted this morning along with a surprising number of other people (my wife said that it was empty when she went in half an hour later).   I cast my vote for Obama, but since it was a touch-screen machine with no paper trail, I have no idea whether the vote actually counted for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Hugo Chavez or Buffy Summers.   It's the American way.

Comments

[annie]

Obama is a potential superstar.

rock on. enjoy your first time experience. my caucus experience was thrilling.

[Wendell]

Well, I knew, from watching the The Wire, that Maryland was a liberal state. But I never realized that your voting rules were so slack that the electorate included members of the Orycteropus, ahem, family...
;-))

[Sam]

Don't know if you noticed, but your old stomping grounds went for Obama, close to 60/40! We've got his back here in Williamstown. Go Obama!

[Eric Martin]

Marc,

A pleasure to read someone write a post about supporting a candidate that is also respectful of the candidate not chosen. It's a shame that so many people that are supposedly capable of nuance feel the need to adopt a black/white - good/ evil narrative about what are really two very solid candidates whose policy preferences are remarkably similar.

There are valid reasons for preferring one over the other (I'd take his foreign policy, with her domestic policy), but the level of vitriol and undialectical thinking has been unsettling.

[Michael]

Thanks for relaying your impressions of the meeting with Obama, Marc. Unfortunately, there aren't too many settings where he gets to lay out his thoughts with a sufficient level of depth. A shivering colleague in yesterday's line to the UMD basketball stadium (who like myself can't vote in the primary) put his finger on the once-in-a-lifetime feeling that surrounds his candidacy. This is certainly a uniquely inspiring moment, and tragically with an almost biblical touch of foreshadowing. It seems reasonably clear that if the scenario unfolds in Obama's favor and the partisan whisper machine proceeds to roll his foreign policy proposals into a ball with his childhood and middle name, Hillary will have better chance to become president by joining his ticket than going against McCain. I'm sure Obama with his remarkable grasp of the long line realizes this very well. One reason why he's not another Jimmy Carter is that the man feels compelled to fill a national iconic role alongside Lincoln and JFK.

[tulanealum]

What are his foreign policies? I've heard he really understands why the world hates America because he lived abroad as a young boy.

I'm open to his candidacy, but that statement certainly doesn't demonstrate much depth...nor does pretending that the Iraq war is a distraction to Afghanistan...unfortunately, the Iraq war, because of our current administration, has turned into something that cannot just be deserted...

So, I'll listen to Obama and seriously consider voting for him if he beats Hillary, but I need to hear more than what I have, which I admit isn't much...perhaps he just hasn't been given the proper forum that I've seen.

[Mike Nargizian]

The early exchange over dialogues with our strategic rivals like Iran really captured it: Clinton's approach was politically safe but strategically wrong, while Obama courageously fleshed out a politically risky but strategically much savvier stance.

Obama's stances can seem more left wing and cutting edge bcs he's only been a Senator since 06. The Senate forces and fosters compromise and tough often ugly decisions and compromises.

Hillary was faced with tougher decisions she had to make decisions on.

If I were you I'd vote for Obama though bcs he's got a better chance of winning. He's the best speaker by far and becoming a superstar figure for now at least.

I'll vote for Hillary in the primary not bcs I like her, she's nauseating to listen to, but bcs her foreign policy will in the end be rational and moderate. I'll vote for McCain in the general election either way.

However, it's easier to talk a big game when you have barely any record to pick apart and never had to stand up in compromising situations and make tough ugly decisions. That's what being President is about and that's what the Senate has ALWAYS been about.

That's why there's only been 1 Senator elected to President in the last 100 years.

While I completely disagree with "your approach" to Iraq and definitely to the madmen in Iran. Obama is also the one who "boldly" said he'd bomb Pakistan first. Big talk from a neophyte.

He could very well win though. He comes off the best in a speech and though I don't want him as President, though he's likeable, there is a chance that him coming from the far left and currying favor from the Arab Muslim world could help him bring them farther towards us...

That being said that is a pipedream imho.

However, being a powerful speaker is certainly a very important asset to a President or any leader.

Mike

[Sherry]

Why is he telling all of America he is not Muslim, but Christian? Isn't this the perfect time to be a role model for Muslims?