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.

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.

[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.

[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. :)