Three Reasons I'm Voting For Obama

I didn't support Obama in the primaries.

Truth be told, I don't even like him much.

But that doesn't matter. He's the Democratic nominee, and I'm going to vote for him in November. And I'm going to be enthusiastic about it.

And this is why:

One: John McCain.

As I wrote the other day, Obama is better than McCain. I know that seems obvious. Of course he's better than McCain. Everyone knows that, right?

Well, it's a damn good reason for me.

I agree with most, though not all, of Obama's positions. And I'd rather take my chances on Obama than on John McCain, with whom I agree on nothing. I don't know whether Obama will succeed in his goals, but I do know that I don't want McCain to even have an opportunity to try to succeed in his goals.

And while yes, there are things about Obama that bother me, there is a lot more about McCain that not only bothers me but downright offends me. Obama will certainly do some things I won't like, but McCain will undoubtedly do worse. Worse foreign policy, worse economic policy, worse political appointees, worse judicial appointees. Worse all around.

Two: He beat Hillary Clinton.

The fact that Obama -- the virtually unknown self-described skinny black guy with a funny name -- was able to beat the great and almighty Clinton machine -- complete with rich and powerful donors, celebrated strategists, and, oh yes, a former two-term president -- says something significant about Obama, something I've been reluctant to admit.

He is really smart. Really, really smart.

He didn't beat her because he was lucky. He didn't beat her because he had more advantages in the race than she did. He didn't beat her because he's black or because she's a woman.

He beat her because he is really smart. He hired very smart people and they developed a very smart two-pronged strategy: one, sell a message people are desperate to buy, and two, math math math. Obama's team understood the primary and caucus system better than Clinton's team and arguably, better than any other candidate in history. That's not luck; that's brilliance in action.

I recently reread my own journal about the Democratic primaries, which I started writing after listening to one of the debates in which, much to my surprise and even horror, I found myself leaning toward Hillary Clinton. I tried to articulate my thoughts in the hope of understanding how it was possible that I, someone who had refused to vote for Kerry in 2004 because of his vote on the Iraq war bill of 2002, could even consider supporting Clinton.

My thoughts in October 2007:

I want my president to be the smartest person in the room. I want it to be so obvious why my president is president. I don’t have to agree with everything my president believes. I don’t have to believe everything my president promises.

But I want my president to be the kind of person who always worked really hard in school. On the paper or student government or model U.N. Valedictorian would be nice. Rhodes Scholars are good too.

I want my president to be the kind of person who likes to hang out with other really smart people and discuss their shared ideals and dreams of how to change the world.

I don’t have to share all the dreams. I don’t have to think that every single idea of how to change the world is a good one. I don’t have to agree that all those ideas will work.

But damnit, I want a smarty-pants president.

Well, then, Obama certainly qualifies. Beating Clinton was no easy feat, and if his team's strategy for the general election is anything like his strategy for the primary -- message and math -- then McCain doesn't stand a chance because his machine is not nearly as powerful as the Clinton machine.

Furthermore, I am confident that President Obama will meet with foreign leaders and not embarrass our entire country with his horrible gaffes, his stupid jokes, or his inappropriate back rubs.

I am confident that President Obama will not need the press secretary to constantly explain what he means when he says completely nonsensical things because he cannot form a coherent sentence to save his life.

I am confident that President Obama will not ask if our children is learning or insist that we "misunderestimate" him or, dear god, encourage us to strive for higher pie.

An intelligent, literate, articulate president will be a wonderfully refreshing change and will, hopefully, help to restore the world's confidence us and in our ability to elect a leader of the free world who isn't borderline retarded.

Three: He'll be a decent president, and that's good enough for me.

Not much of a bar, I know, but after eight years of what historians pretty much unanimously agree is the worst president in American history, I think it's a good standard.

How many presidents in the last, say, fifty years can be described as decent? Johnson was decent, I suppose, except for that whole Viet Nam thing, which, fairly or not, overshadows everything else he did that might otherwise have made him a decent president.

Nixon? Like Johnson, he did some decent things, sure, but I've read too much Woodward and Bernstein to ever think of Nixon as anything but a crooked, corrupted son of a bitch who should have gone to prison and got off easy when Ford pardoned him.

Carter? Was he decent? I suppose he was, although history does not remember him that way. Too many crises -- hostages and oil among them -- stain his reputation.

Reagan? Don't even get me started.

Daddy Bush? See above re: Reagan.

Clinton? Well, that's tough, isn't it? I think he was a decent president, although there is certainly an argument to be made that he wasn't. He did bad things and selfish things and stupid things, and for all the good he did, we will never forget that he was the president who got impeached because he couldn't keep his pants zipped.

Dubya? Please.

So. A decent president is a good goal, I think. If Obama manages to be a great president, so much the better, but at this point, I'd settle for a president with good intentions. And I believe he has good intentions. Whether he will ultimately prove to be Carter -- good intentions without good results -- well, we won't know that until he moves into the White House.

But I do know that he has the potential, which is certainly more than can be said for John McCain.

So. Those are my three reasons for supporting Obama.

What are yours?


[Note: eurotom at DailyKos wrote a great diary today called Why I (a Hillary supporter) Am Committed to Barack Obama's Candidacy. I highly recommend it for some good coparisons of policy differences between Obama and McCain.

And I would encourage my other fellow Clinton supporters to add to this conversation. As some of the more fervent Obama supporters despair about Obama's turn toward the center or whether he's as progressive as they'd imagined, someone (or many someones) need to pick up the slack to keep up the enthusaism for Obama. If they won't do it, we should. He might not have been our first choice, but second choice is still better than last choice.]

[Cross-posted at DailyKos]