In yesterday’s Powerline, Paul Mirengoff, grateful that he doesn’t have to participate in the selection of the Democratic presidential nominee argues why, he believes, Obama would make a better president than Ms. Hillary:
It’s hard to see Clinton being a good president, at least from my perspective. However, there probably are limits as to how bad she would be. Hillary seems to understand that the world is a dangerous place; that our enemies make it so; and that therefore, at a minimum, we should not be in a rush to accommodate them.
Obama may or may not grasp these basic realities. If he does not, then he will be another Jimmy Carter.
Yet, in contrast to Clinton, one can imagine Obama turning out to be a good president. That’s because there’s some evidence that he’s intellectually open to deviations from orthodox liberalism in ways that Clinton isn’t. In addition, there may be something to his (admittedly self-serving) claim that he’s temperamentally better suited than Clinton to working with his political adversaries. It’s difficult to see how he could be more poorly suited.
Paul’s analysis is remarkably similar to my own. Whereas Hillary dismisses Reagan’s ideas as “bad,” Obama recognizes them as significant even finding, finding merit in such conservative proposals as market approaches to reducing pollution and charter schools to improving education.
Just as smart as (if not smarter than) his brainy Democratic rival, Obama at least shows respect for the intellectual ferment on the right embodied in the Reagan Revolution. This is not to excuse the Illinois Senator for his liberal voting record or for his ever-changing explanations of his relationship to his angry former pastor, but it does show an intellectual curiosity and openness to new ideas that seems wanting in the wonkish Senator from New York.
It just seems that the Democratic frontrunner would sit down with his ideological adversaries for reasons other than political necessity.
It’s now what he says that’s important but what he does. Obama has always been the kind of person that talks like he’s in the middle, but if you look at his voting record from since his days as an Illinois legislator it is on the far left. People in Illinois have long known the truth about Obama. The rest of the country still has wool pulled over their eyes.
Yes, but James, one can have a liberal voting record and be open to conservative ideas.
Still, like you, I could never vote for him because of that record, but I can at least appreciate that he doesn’t dismiss opposition ideas out of hand.
Yikes, Obama as a better president. I don’t think so. He has been associated with the far left for all of his political career. It’s been his ticket to success – note his friendship with Ayers and Dohern.
I don’t see him becoming president and suddenly changing his tune.
Not to mention that his wife scares me. Notice that even Chirstopher Hitchens thinks she is the reason they stayed so close to Rev. Wright.
This may sound selfish – but he is the least pro Israel candidate – almost anti. I know, he is being elected president of the US, not Israel, but over the last 40 years – Israel has been the closest to the US on issues of safety and security in the middle east. They have often been shuntted aside, to make the Arabs feel more comfortable. But I still think Hilary would be more in tune with the Israeli point of view of the middle east than Obama.
Of course, I”m still hoping for McCain, might even have to send him money one of these days.
Sorry, I agree with James. I don’t believe for a second that Obama’s answer about market-based solutions and charter was anything more than complete BS when cornered about his partisanship. Talk is cheap as they say, and the proof is in the pudding. When Obama had a long and broad opportunity to show his “intellectual openness” he instead amassed the most liberal, and therefore partisan voting record in the senate.
Hillary on the other hand actually worked with Republicans on legislation. We all know it was for political expediency’s sake, but nevertheless, it is a record she has, and he does not.
I think a Hillary administration would actually feel more pressure to work across the isle than Obama. The press is not in the bag for her they way they are with him. And i think the Republican view would get more honest attention were she the pres. Under Obama, Republican views would be entirely mischaracterized, demonized if they were given a hearing at all, while Obama is hailed as the most bi-partisan president in American history.
If Hillary wins with a Democratic majority, expect her to only pay lip service to the GOP.
Lately, I’ve been taking a lot of grief from “loyal Republicans” because I won’t support McCain. (Ironic, considering McCain has never been a loyal Republican himself, for him to suddenly feel entitled to party loyalty, but I digress.) These McChumps tell me that by not supporting McCain over Obama, that I will be complicit in “destroying America” and “stabbing our troops in the back.”
Seriously, considering how we mock people who faint at Obama rallies and treat him as the “Obamassiah,” is it any less ridiculous to act like Obama is the anti-Christ? I don’t agree with his policies, I think his time in office would be a repeat of the Carter administration, but I don’t think an Obama presidency would be Armageddon.
#5 That would be true of probably any president who wins with a majority of their own party in Congress, the minority party gets shut out…
I believe that Obama is probably more open to compromise than Hillary, only because I doubt his ability to get in there an fight for something. He’s a blank slate and people just impose whatever they want on him, don’t see that changing much.
What good is being “open” to conservative ideas, listening in a friendly way, etc. – if, in fact, you always… always come out for the Marxist / anti-American position on the questions that matter? People who let you know they are closed to conservative ideas, are more honest.
Market techniques like… carbon offsets? So, you’re really saying that Obama is a Kyoto supporter. See my comment above.
Obama’s gonna buck the teachers’ unions, once he’s in office? Um, right.
V the K,
You aren’t necessarily required to vote for McCain. What you are required to do, at least in order to call yourself a patriot, is look at the 2 viable choices presented this fall and vote for the one that will do less damage to the country.
Now does it do less damage to the country to have a liberal-Republican president who will undoubtedly get all the blame for the harm congress has already done and will continue to do (while thwarting some of it), or does it do less damage to let democrats have it all and be held accountable for it?
I haven’t figured that one out yet.
and one more thing….
An Obama presidency doesn’t have to be armageddon to be the choice that will harm America more. A second Carter administration would be horrible for America. But we are required to vote for whichever choice harms America less, no matter how distasteful the choice may be.