Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe....Obama or Hillary?

[shadowkat]

Okay really happy that I'm not commuting into Manhattan tomorrow - it's going to be packed due to the Giants Parade.

Anyhow...the primaries are tomorrow. I'm still on the fence between OBAMA and Hillary. I'm a registered democrate, I think, so can vote in the primary in NY. Whether I do or not is still up in the air.

Here's who the progressive feminists are supporting and why:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/NYfeministsforpeace/

Me?

Ugh. Hillary Clinton is a tough lady. She's pragmatic, has had experience with the difficulties of passing a National Health Care Program, knows the Senate and how to get the two parties to work together, knows first hand what happened during 9/11 - having seen it from both her Husband's perspective, New Yorker's perspective and current administrations, has a strong desire to take this country in a different and more positive direction, and I like her views:

1. Universal affordable healthcare with choices including keeping your current coverage or choosing from the same plans as Members of Congress. The only difficulty is she wants to make it a mandate rather than a choice. But I think that may be a good idea - since if we mandate that people have health insurance we will be better able to control disease outbreaks and promote wellness across the board. The downside of course is most people can't afford to do that. But if we give those people a tax rebate - as she proposes - and mandate that it be used for health care, that could solve the problem. On the other hand - it will also create a lot of paper work, slow down the system, and could result in a lower standard of care not to mention more bureacratic red tape as we have seen with Hillary's other great accomplishment - HIPAA.

2. Protect homeownership by freezing home foreclosures and protect homeowners from predatory lenders. Okay. Sounds good in theory. But, that puts Banks at risk - and we are already having troubles with banks closing or merging and the loss of jobs. How can you protect homeowners and not cause banks to close or other problems from emerging?

3. Common Sense Spending - Don't Spend What you don't have on what you don't need. Yeah, but she's as guilty as the rest of them for pork. Padding bills with stuff for her constituents.

4. Tax Fairness - tax relief with New York's middle class...not bad.

Also it would, I admit, be nice to have a woman president. But I'm not voting for someone just because they are a woman, any more than I'd vote for someone just because they are black or a man.

Hillary has a strength and pro-activeness that I'm not certain I see in Obama. As well as a pragmatism. Obama feels very idealistic to me. Almost too good to be true. And I'm not sure the fact that he reminds me of JFK is necessarily a good thing. JFK - if you remember - didn't do much as president except almost start World War III and get us into Vietnam. It was LBJ who signed the Civil Rights Bill and pushed Medicare through. LBG, who was less charismatic, was able to get a lot more done and was far more pragmatic. So the comparison makes me uneasy. Charisma doesn't always make a good leader, just a likable one and while it helps to have a likeable leader, it should not be the main thing.

On the other hand? Obama was against the Iraq war. And more importantly is less divisive than Hillary. I know Republicans that would vote for Obama. A lot of people really hate Hillary, democrats and republicans. So, I think Obama may have a better chance at winning the General Election. Plus, Obama seems to be motivating people in a postive way. People seem to like him.

I don't know. What do you guys think? I probably won't be responding to the comments, I just want to know what people think - regardless of whether or not you are American or of voting age. So this is open to everyone.


[Poll #1133149]

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I'm still counting the environment as my most important issue, although the war and health care are also hugely important to me.

I'm afraid Hillary lost me in Iowa:
http://embers-log.livejournal.com/180999.html#cutid1
where she chose Hog Farmers (she receives a lot of political donations from the Meat Producers) over the environment in Iowa.... I'm afraid it makes me wonder what other special interests she caters to.

Also I found myself remembering how defensive and combative the Clintons were when they were in the White House. I'm afraid if she is President then the Republicans will be out to get her, and she will have difficulty getting anything done.

I don't know that Obama will be able to come to bi-partisan agreements, but evidently he did very well in Illinois. He may be too good to be true, but I have decided to go with the hope, and the young/new voters who have been inspired by him.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I forgot to list the environment as a choice. Sigh. It's ironic considering my job is all about the environment at the moment. (I work closely with project managers and engineers in procuring contractors and industrial hygenists and environmental consultants in the abatement and remediation of hazardous chemicals from the earth and railroad stations on Long Island.) Maybe that's why I forgot - it's hard to see it as a major issue when it's become sort of your life. LOL!

Did not know that about Hillary. Thank you for the link.

And I share many of your concerns.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Four years ago, when I was still in Iowa, I had official pollsters call me, and they asked me what concerned me the most:
Abortion
School Prayer
Family Values
Terrorism
and there may have been some other choices which are not even on my radar!
I told them 'none of the above', my concerns were the Environment: clean air, clean water, and organic/non-GM food. Things which are all of real concern to everyone in Iowa, but don't even get listed.

Anyway your list was way better than theirs and you clearly had only forgotten it, while their lists were, IMO an attempt to control the discussion.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

LOL! It's telling that I took those issues off of Clinton's campaign pamphlet and the news media - which also left the environment off the topic list.

I think that's why Gore decided not to run as President, he realized he would be hampered by having to address all these other issues and not the environment.

There are days I feel like I'm the only one praticing "green" issues - I don't drive and only travel by electric powered mass transit, I eat organic, I recycle, I try and use canvas bags and not plastic as much as possible, and well work. Also I use florescent light bulbs - the bulbs in my apartment haven't had to be replaced in almost six-seven years. At the moment the environment is an individual thing and a state thing - more is accomplished on a state and local level than a federal one. It's difficult to do too much on the federal level without killing a ton of trees. ;-)

Uh...pretty much what you said.

[wenchsenior.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble deciding, too, although it's a moot point here in Texas. We don't count in the primary. Ever. I'll support whichever Dem gets nominated, but I worry about Hillary's electibilty. Although, it's a moot point here in Texas. Democratic votes won't count. I didn't even bother to vote last presidential election.

Damn, I wish I still lived in Wisconsin, for SO many reasons.

Anyway, environment (global warming and energy policy) is my number one issue, since all the others will be moot if we don't get our shit together on that topic real soon. Health care and the economy are a close second. At this point, I think the war is moot, too. We're in there and I think we're staying there for at least another decade, so I think it's going to be a matter of intelligent management. Any of the leading candidates can likely do far better than the clusterF*** we currently have in power.

Frankly, at this point I wouldn't even be that disturbed by a McCain win. Dude is old-skool Republican, which is a lot different than the crazed religious big-spendy family values types of the post-Reagan era.

As long as Huckabee :shudder: and Romney don't win, I'll live with it.

Re: Uh...pretty much what you said.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I hear you...for seventeen years I lived in Kansas - voting as a Democrat or a non-Republican in Kansas is akin to throwing a crumb in a rock toss. I don't believe that Kansas has ever in its history as a state gone Democrat. But I did it anyway. Was raised to believe that if you don't vote, you can't complain about what you get. ;-)
(My parents currently live in South Carolina which is also conservative - Democrats rarely win down there.)

Living New York is a lot more fun from a political stand-point. It's more varied. My work place is conservative but my neighborhood is fairly liberal - except for my landlord and neighbors who are conservative.

I did vote. Not who I thought I was going to vote for last night when I wrote this post. I changed my mind during the day.

I don't think you are going to have to worry too much about Huckabee - I think he's going to be pulled out of it soon. Romney? Is too wishy-washy. McCain is going to drive conservative Republican's nuts - since he appears to be a bit of a maverick.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I'm no American so I should probably keep quiet but I think you raised valid points (and yes there's a huge gap between the image that JFK still carries as a President and the reality of his presidency!).

Having said that, H. Clinton does have baggages and I also tend to think that Obama has a better chance to win against any Republican candidate.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks for replying. I really wanted to know what the non-Americans think.

Obama feels like a more positive force. He has less baggage as you so aptly put it. We've had eight years of Clinton, four years of Bush Senior, and eight years of Bush Junior. It's beginning to feel like the Bush/Clinton show...

[cynesthesia.livejournal.com]

I voted for Hillary here in CA. I believe she is more determined to wage a fight against some of the destructive Republican policies of the past 7 years; her health care plan is infinitely better; she knows the issues inside and out and has specifics on them. Lots of places in NY state were initially hostile to her and she seems to have won over most of them.

I was originally a skeptic where she was concerned (and wanted Gore to run), but when I started ignoring the main stream media narrative about her and focused on what she was saying, I found myself a convert.

After having been very impressed with Obama's 2004 speech I found that every time I tried to climb on the bandwagon, I was thrown off by the candidate's own words and actions. He's done a fair amount of finger-wagging at secular people, his attempt to sound hawkish over the summer provoked a riot in Pakistan, and although I'm not GLBT, his choice of the homophobic "pray the gay away" minister Donnie McClurkin to speak at a gospel rally in SC made me very uncomfortable about who BHO might be willing to throw under the bus in the name of expediency.

I may not agree with Hillary about everything, but I feel I know what I'm getting.

The suspense is killing me here in CA and since we use a lot of paper ballots this could be a late night for everyone. :)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I hear you. I agonized over my decision today and almost didn't vote. But decided I needed to and I'm still not sure I made the right choice. But in the end I went with my gut.

In New York - it will be an interesting race since it is possible for both Candidates can come out of NY with delegates. It's set up so you can vote for delegates. So Hillary and Obama could get an equal number of delegates from NY.

NY appears to be split on it.

[cynesthesia.livejournal.com]

Agonizing over the decision describes it! Although, since California's primary used to be held in June, votes here were an afterthought because the nomination was usually a done deal by that time. I'm glad that at least this time, votes here will have an influence.

IIRC our delegates are assigned proportionally too.